In March of 1920 a man telephoned me ... George Chamberlain and he was general superintendent of the A.E. Staley Company ... In 1919, [the company's Fellowship Club] had formed a football team, it had done well against other local teams but Mr. Staley wanted to build it into a team that could compete successfully with the best semi-professional and industrial teams in the country ... Mr. Chamberlain asked if I would like to come to Decatur and work for the Staley Company.

Originally named the Decatur Staleys, the club was established by the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois in 1919 as a company team. This was the typical start for several early professional football franchises, the company hired George Halas and Edward "Dutch" Sternaman in 1920 to run the team. The 1920 Decatur Staleys season[11] was their inaugural regular season completed in the newly formed American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922). Full control of the team was turned over to Halas and Sternaman in 1921.[12] Official team and league records cite Halas as the founder as he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL.[13]

The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where the club was renamed the Chicago Staleys. Under an agreement reached by Halas and Sternaman with Staley, Halas purchased the rights to the club from Staley for US$100.

In 1922, Halas changed the team name from the Staleys to the Bears,[14] the team moved into Wrigley Field, which was home to the Chicago Cubsbaseball franchise. As with several early NFL franchises, the Bears derived their nickname from their city's baseball team (some directly, some indirectly – like the Bears, whose young are called "cubs").[15] Halas liked the bright orange-and-blue colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and the Bears adopted those colors as their own, albeit in a darker shade of each (the blue is Pantone 5395, navy blue, and the orange is Pantone 1665, similar to burnt orange).[16][17]

The Staleys/Bears dominated the league in the early years, their rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals, the oldest in the NFL (and a crosstown rival from 1920 to 1959), was key in four out of the first six league titles. During the league's first six years, the Bears lost twice to the Canton Bulldogs (who took two league titles over that span), and split with their crosstown rival Cardinals (going 4–4–2 against each other over that span), but no other team in the league defeated the Bears more than a single time, during that span, the Bears posted 34 shutouts.

The Bears' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers is one of the oldest and most storied in American professional sports, dating back to 1921 (the Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL in 1921); in one infamous incident that year, Halas got the Packers expelled from the league in order to prevent their signing a particular player, and then graciously got them re-admitted after the Bears had closed the deal with that player.[18]

The 1924 team photo

The franchise was an early success under Halas, capturing the NFL Championship in 1921 and remaining competitive throughout the decade; in 1924 the Bears claimed the Championship after defeating the Cleveland Bulldogs on December 7, even putting the title "World's Champions" on their 1924 team photo. But the NFL had ruled that games after November 30 did not count towards league standings, and the Bears had to settle for second place behind Cleveland,[19] their only losing season came in 1929.

During the 1920s the club was responsible for triggering the NFL's long-standing rule that a player could not be signed until his college's senior class had graduated, the NFL took that action as a consequence of the Bears' aggressive signing of famous University of Illinois player Red Grange within a day of his final game as a collegian.[20]

Despite much of the on-field success, the Bears were a team in trouble, they faced the problem of increased operating costs, but flatlined attendance. The Bears would only draw roughly 5,000–6,000 fans a game, while a University of Chicago game would draw 40,000–50,000 fans a game. By adding top college football draw Red Grange to the roster, the Bears knew that they found something to draw more fans to their games. C.C. Pyle was able to secure a $2,000 per game contract for Grange, and in one of the first games, the Bears defeated the Green Bay Packers, 21–0. However, Grange remained on the sidelines while learning the team's plays from Bears quarterback Joey Sternaman. Later in 1925, The Bears would go on a barnstorming tour, showing off the best football player of the day. 75,000 people paid to see Grange lead the Bears to a 17–7 victory over the Los Angeles Tigers, who were a quickly put together team of West Coast college all-stars. After a loss to San Francisco, the Bears cruised to a 60–3 over a semi-pro team called the Portland All Stars.[21]

Any hopes that Grange would lead the Bears to glory in 1926 were quickly dashed. A failed contract talk led to Grange bolting to the AFL's New York Yankees, owned by Pyle, the Bears also lost star quarterback Joey Sternaman, who joined the Chicago Bulls of the AFL. The Bears replaced Grange with Paddy Driscoll, a star football player in his own right, the Bears used the money made from the Grange barn-storming tour to sign the man that replaced him. Grange split his time between making movies and playing football. However, the time was not right to have two competing pro football leagues, and the AFL folded after only one season. Grange would return to the Bears.[21]

After the financial losses of the 1932 Championship season, Halas' partner Dutch Sternaman left the organization. Halas maintained full control of the Bears until his death in 1983, he also coached the team off-and-on for forty seasons, an NFL record. In the 1932 "Unofficial" NFL Championship, the Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans in the first indoor American football game at Chicago Stadium.

From 1940–1947, quarterbackSid Luckman led the Bears to victories in four out of the five NFL Championship Games in which they appeared, the team acquired the University of Chicago's discarded nickname "Monsters of the Midway" and their now-famous helmet "C", as well as a newly penned theme song that declared them "The Pride and Joy of Illinois". One famous victory during that period was their 73–0 victory over the favored Washington Redskins at Griffith Stadium in the 1940 NFL Championship Game; the score is still an NFL record for lopsided results.[23] The secret behind the one-sided outcome was the introduction of a new offensive formation by Halas, the T-formation, as Halas named it, involved two running backs instead of the traditional one in the backfield. Luckman established himself as one of the franchise's most elite quarterbacks. Between 1939 and 1950, He set the Bears' passing records for most career touchdowns, yards, and completions. Many of Luckman's records stood for decades before they were eclipsed by Jay Cutler in 2014.[24] Cutler then went on to break Luckman's franchise record for most career passing touchdowns a year later in 2015.[25]

Bears Hall of Famer Mike Ditka is the only person in the modern era to win an NFL championship as a player and coach for the Chicago Bears.

After declining throughout the 1950s, the team rebounded in 1963 to capture its eighth NFL Championship, which would be its last until 1985, the late 1960s and early-1970s produced notable players like Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, and Brian Piccolo,[26] who died of embryonal carcinoma in 1970. The American television network ABC aired a movie about Piccolo in 1971 entitled Brian's Song, starring James Caan and Billy Dee Williams in the roles of Piccolo and Sayers respectively; Jack Warden won an Emmy Award for his performance as Halas. The movie was later released for theater screenings after first being shown on television, despite Hall of Fame careers, Butkus and Sayers would also have their careers cut short due to injuries, hamstringing the Bears of this era.

Halas retired as coach in 1967 and spent the rest of his days in the front office, he became the only person to be involved with the NFL throughout the first 60 years of its existence. He was also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first induction class in 1963, as the only living founder of the NFL at the February 1970 merger between the NFL and the American Football League, the owners honored Halas by electing him the first President of the National Football Conference, a position that he held until his death in 1983. In his honor, the NFL named the NFC Championship trophy as the George Halas Memorial Trophy.

On November 1, 1983, a day after the death of George Halas, his oldest daughter, Virginia McCaskey, took over as the majority owner of the team, her husband, Ed McCaskey, succeeded her father as the Chairman of the Board.[30] Their son Michael became the third president in team history.[31] Mrs. McCaskey holds the honorary title of "secretary of the board of directors", but the 90-year–old matriarch has been called the glue that holds the franchise together.[32] Mrs. McCaskey's reign as the owner of the Bears was not planned, as her father originally earmarked her brother, George "Mugs" Halas Jr. as the heir apparent to the franchise. However, he died of a massive heart attack in 1979, her impact on the team is well-noted as her own family has dubbed her "The First Lady of Sports", and the Chicago Sun-Times has listed her as one of Chicago's most powerful women.[33]

The Bears making a rushing play in the end zone against the Patriots during Super Bowl XX.

Mike Ditka, a tight end for the Bears from 1961 to 1966, was hired to coach the team by George Halas in 1982. His gritty personality earned him the nickname "Iron Mike"; in the 1985 season the fire in the Bears–Packers rivalry was relit when Ditka used 315 pound defensive tackle "Refrigerator" Perry as a running back in a touchdown play at Lambeau Field, against the Packers. The Bears won their ninth NFL Championship, first since the AFL-NFL merger, in Super Bowl XX after the 1985 season in which they dominated the NFL with their then-revolutionary 46 defense and a cast of characters that recorded the novelty rap song "The Super Bowl Shuffle". The season was notable in that the Bears had only one loss, the "unlucky 13th" game of the season, a Monday night affair in which they were defeated by the Miami Dolphins, at the time, much was made of the fact that the 1972Dolphins were the only franchise in history to have had an undefeated season and post-season. The Dolphins came close to setting up a rematch in the Super Bowl, but lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC title game. "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was videotaped the day after that Monday night loss in Miami.

After the 1985 Championship season, the Bears remained competitive throughout the 1980s but failed to return to the Super Bowl under Ditka. Between the firing of Ditka and the hiring of Lovie Smith, the Bears had two head coaches, Dick Jauron and Dave Wannstedt. While both head coaches led the team to the playoffs once (Wannstedt in 1994 and Jauron in 2001), neither was able to accumulate a winning record or bring the Bears back to the Super Bowl. Therefore, the 1990s was largely considered to be a disappointment.

Before the Bears hired Jauron in January 1999, Dave McGinnis (Arizona's defensive coordinator, and a former Bears assistant under Ditka and Wannstedt) backed out of taking the head coaching position, the Bears scheduled a press conference to announce the hiring before McGinnis agreed to contract terms.[34] Soon after Jauron's hiring, Mrs. McCaskey fired her son Michael as president, replacing him with Ted Phillips and promoting Michael to chairman of the board.[35] Phillips, the current Bears president, became the first man outside of the Halas-McCaskey family to run the team.[36]

Lovie Smith accomplished his first objective as the team's head coach by sweeping the Green Bay Packers during the 2005 season.

Lovie Smith, hired on January 15, 2004, is the third post-Ditka head coach. Joining the Bears as a rookie head coach, Smith brought the highly successful Tampa 2 defensive scheme with him to Chicago, before his second season with the Bears, the team rehired their former offensive coordinator and then Illinois head coach Ron Turner to improve the Bears' struggling offense.[37] In 2005, the Bears won their division and reached the playoffs for the first time in four years, their previous playoff berth was earned by winning the NFC Central in 2001. The Bears improved upon their success the following season, by clinching their second consecutive NFC North title during Week 13 of the 2006 season, winning their first playoff game since 1995, and earning a trip to Super Bowl XLI.[38] However, they fell short of the championship, losing 29–17 to the Indianapolis Colts. Following the 2006 season, the club decided to give Smith a contract extension through 2011, at roughly $5 million per year, this comes a season after being the lowest paid head coach in the National Football League.[39]

The club has played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920. Through the 2010 season, they led the NFL in overall franchise wins with 704 and had an overall record of 704–512–42 (going 687–494–42 during the regular season and 17–18 in the playoffs),[40] on November 18, 2010 the Bears recorded franchise win number 700 in a win against the Miami Dolphins.

The Bears made one of the biggest trades in team history by acquiring Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler in 2009.

The team started the 2011 season strong with a 7–3 record, and running back Matt Forté led the NFL in total yards from scrimmage. Eventually, quarterback Jay Cutler fractured his thumb, and Forté also was lost for the season against the Kansas City Chiefs after spraining his MCL, and the Bears, with Caleb Hanie playing, lost five straight before winning against the Minnesota Vikings with Josh McCown starting in favor over Hanie. At season's end, general manager Jerry Angelo was fired, and former Chiefs director of scouting and former Bears scout Phil Emery was brought in. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz resigned, and eventually retired, and was replaced by offensive line coach Mike Tice, the Bears made another notable move by trading for Miami Dolphins receiver and Pro Bowl MVP Brandon Marshall.[46] The Bears became the first team in NFL history to return six interceptions for touchdowns in the first seven games of the season, with another pick-six by Brian Urlacher in Week 9 bringing Chicago two behind the record set by the 1961 San Diego Chargers.[47] However, the Bears missed the playoffs with a record of 10–6 (after starting the season 7–1, the first team to start with the record and miss the playoffs since the 1996 Washington Redskins),[48] and Smith was fired on December 31.[49]

Then-CFL head coach and former NFL journeyman Marc Trestman was hired to succeed Smith after an exhaustive search that included at least 13 known candidates,[50][51] on March 20, 2013, Brian Urlacher's 13-year tenure with the Bears ended when both sides failed to agree on a contract.[52] The Trestman era began on September 8 with a 24–21 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, making Trestman the fourth head coach in Bears history to win in his coaching debut, after George Halas (1920), Neill Armstrong (1978) and Dick Jauron (1999),[53] the Bears ended the 2013 season 8–8. The following season was a disaster for the Bears, as they finished 5–11 and last in the NFC North. Trestman and Emery were fired after the season ended.[54]

The Bears hired Ryan Pace of the New Orleans Saints to be their new general manager on January 8, 2015,[55] on January 16, 2015, John Fox accepted a four-year deal to become head coach.[56] In Fox's first season as head coach, the Bears saw improvements from 2014; after USA Today projected the Bears to win three games,[57] they doubled that total and finished the season with a 6–10 record, including a Thanksgiving win over the Packers at Lambeau Field.

However, during the 2016 season, the Bears regressed heavily, compiling a 3–13 record, their worst since the NFL's change to 16-game seasons in 1978, the season included several injuries to starters and secondary players, including Jay Cutler, who only played five games as a result of two separate injuries. The team's backup quarterback Brian Hoyer would then start the next three games before being out for the season with a broken arm and being replaced by Matt Barkley, who earned his first career start with the Bears.

Virginia Halas McCaskey, her children, and grandchildren control 80 percent of the team, and Mrs. McCaskey votes her children's stock as well as her own. Patrick Ryan, executive chairman of Aon Corp., and Aon director Andrew McKenna own 19.7% of the club.[58] In a Crain's Chicago Business article, one businessman described his wishes for the team to maximize its potential; in 2009, Yahoo! Sports listed the McCaskeys as the third worst owner in the NFL, stating "[T]hey get less for what they've got than any team in our league."[59] There have been rumors that the McCaskey family might split up over the team.[32]

In 2012, Forbes magazine reported that the franchise is worth $1.19 billion, making it the eighth richest franchise in the NFL.[60] Chicago is the third largest media market in the United States.[61]

The club's first logo was introduced in the early 1950s as a black bear on top of a football, they kept this until 1962, when the Bears trademark 'C' logo was first introduced.[65]

The change in their logo from the black bear was due to the addition of logos on helmets, which pro football teams started adding in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unlike some NFL franchises that have had many different looks over time, the Bears have kept the wishbone 'C' for over 40 years.

In 1974, the team decided to keep the same 'C' logo but change the color from white to orange with white trim, this is the current logo; however, the club has since introduced alternate logos, including a black bear inside of the orange wishbone 'C', introduced in 1995, and an orange bear head, introduced in 1999.

In 1920 the team introduced uniforms containing brown and blue stripes; in the 1930s, the franchise's uniform underwent substantial alterations. By 1933 the Bears donned all-orange jerseys with navy numbers and matching navy blue helmets; in 1936, they modified this design into "an early version of psychedelia" by adding three orange stripes to their helmets, changing the color of the jerseys from orange to white, complementing the new white jerseys with 14 navy and orange alternating stripes on the sleeves, and introducing socks with a similar striped pattern extending from ankle to knee. Because of poor response from the fans and the media, this design lasted only one season.[66]

By 1949, the team was wearing the familiar navy blue shirts with white, rounded numbers; in 1956, the team added "TV numbers" to the sleeves. The Bears 'C' logo first appeared on the helmets in 1962, the logo changed from white to a white-bordered orange logo 11 years later, and has remained unchanged ever since. The Bears added the initials GSH to the left sleeve of their jerseys in 1984 in memory of George Halas.

For decades, the team was known as the only NFL team to wear jersey numbers that were not the traditional block-style numbers (though during the 1971 season, the Bears' road jerseys used the block-style numbers), although a handful of other NFL teams and the Houston Oilers during their early AFL days experimented with rounder jersey numbers, by the mid-1960s the Bears were the only team left to continue wearing rounded jersey numbers. Since the mid-1990s, however, several teams have shifted away from the block numbers in favor of numbers that match a specific team font (e.g. Denver Broncos, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles, etc.) or in the case of the Pittsburgh Steelers, match the jersey number font with the helmet numbers while otherwise leaving the jersey design alone.

Other variations to the Bears uniforms over the years include the addition of navy blue pants as a part of the road kit in 1984, during the 1994 season, the Bears – with most of the other NFL franchises – introduced throwback uniforms to be worn in the honor of the NFL's 75th anniversary. These uniforms with brown and blue stripes resemble the original Bears uniforms worn in the 1920s, on October 7, 2002 the Bears wore navy blue pants with their navy blue home jerseys for the first time, and lost at home to Green Bay before a national Monday Night Football audience. The Bears did not wear the all-blue combination again until the 2006 regular season finale against the Packers, also a loss, on December 31. A variation of the all-blue look, this time featuring blue socks with orange stripes, was used on October 20, 2016 against the Packers as part of the NFL Color Rush initiative, a game the Bears also lost. Then on September 10, 2017, the Bears played the Atlanta Falcons at home in their all-blue uniforms and lost, giving the combination an 0–4 all-time record.

On November 13, 2005 and October 29, 2006 (both times in games against the San Francisco 49ers), the Bears introduced an orange alternate home jersey, the orange swaps roles with the navy blue on this alternate jersey, as it becomes the dominant color while the navy complements. The orange jerseys were worn again on October 19, 2008 at home against the Minnesota Vikings in a 48–41 victory.[67]

The Bears also wore the orange jerseys against the Detroit Lions in 2007, a 2009 game vs. the Cleveland Browns, as well as in 2011 against the Packers and Lions. The Bears previously wore orange jerseys as part of a throwback uniform in a Thanksgiving Day game at the Dallas Cowboys in 2004, their uniforms, especially for their classic look, have been cited as one of the best in the league.[68]

Since 2005, the Bears have worn their alternate orange jerseys for one home game a season that is near Halloween, for the 2005–07 and 2010 home openers, the team wore the white jerseys with the navy blue pants. The team is 4–0 in these games, beating the Lions in 2005, 2006, and 2010, and beating the Chiefs in 2007.

The Bears honored the original Monsters of the Midway during the 2010 season by wearing throwback uniforms of the era for selected games, the uniforms are a nod to the 1940s when the Bears won four NFL titles with Hall of Famers Danny Fortman, Sid Luckman, George McAfee, George Musso, Bronko Nagurski, Joe Stydahar and Clyde "Bulldog" Turner.[69] The Bears wore the throwbacks once again for the 2012 season.[70]

In 2012, after Nike took over the NFL uniform supplier from Reebok, the Bears uniform received changes. One of the changes include moving the numbers on the sleeves onto the shoulder pad, as well as enlarging the GSH on the stripes.[71]

The team also formerly had their own cheerleading squad called the Chicago Honey Bears. However, Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey terminated them after the 1985 season,[73] the squad's uniforms have changed 3 times: from 1977–1979 was a white bodysuit with navy blue sleeves, from 1980–1984 was also a white bodysuit, but with orange sleeves and the navy was moved to the trim, and in the squad's final season in 1985, the uniform was redesigned with an orange sequin vest.[74]

The Green Bay Packers are the Bears' biggest rivals since their team's inception in 1920, the Green Bay Packers currently have the lead at 95–94–6,[75] and the teams have met twice in the postseason. The Bears won the 1941 meeting, 33–14, and eventually defeated the New York Giants in the 1941 NFL Championship Game, and the Packers won the 2011 meeting, 21–14, en route to a Super Bowl XLV win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The teams' first meeting was a victory for the Bears (known as the Staleys at the time) in 1921 in a shutout, 20–0, the Packers claimed their first win over the Bears in 1925, 14–10. The 1924 matchup (which ended in a 3–0 win for Chicago) was notable for featuring the first ever ejection of players in a game in NFL history, as Frank Hanny of the Bears and Walter Voss of the Packers were ejected for punching each other,[76] the rivalry also featured one of the last successful fair catch kicks in 1968, when Bears kicker Mac Percival kicked the game-winning field goal.[77]

The Detroit Lions and Bears have faced off since the Lions' inception in 1930, when they were known as the Portsmouth Spartans, with the Spartans winning, 7–6, and Chicago winning the second meeting, 14–6, since then, the Bears have led the series, 95–66–5. The rivalry grew in 1932, when the Bears and Spartans met in the first ever postseason game in NFL history, with the Bears winning the game 9–0, the game also was known as the first "indoor football" game, as the game took place in indoor Chicago Stadium due to a blizzard at the time. The game also started the forward pass.[78]

Former cross-town rivals, the Bears and the Cardinals have faced each other more times than any other teams not currently in the same division. Highlights of the rivalry include Ernie Nevers scoring 40 points against the Bears in 1929 in a 40–7 rout; in 2006, the Bears defeated the Cardinals in a 24–23 comeback from a 20-point deficit in the 2nd half, which resulted in Cardinals coach Dennis Green's famous rant.[79] The Bears currently lead the all-time series, 57–27–6.

Cleveland Browns: Since 2005, the Bears and Browns have met in the final game of the preseason, after the two teams made an agreement to play each other in alternating cities due to their close proximity.[80] The Browns won the 2005 game 16–6, but the Bears have since gone 7–5, winning in their 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2016 matchups.[81] In their all-time series, the Browns lead 6–9 (as the current expansion team).

Indianapolis Colts: Despite not meeting as often, the Bears and Colts are known as being geographic rivals, with NFL.com analyst Dave Dameshek calling the game the I-65 Bowl, after Interstate 65, which connects between Chicago and Indianapolis.[82] The Colts (while in Baltimore) won the first meeting in 1953 13–9. Both teams have shared various moments in the past, with the Bears suffering their worst loss in franchise history 52–0 to the Colts during their time in Baltimore,[83] the Bears later won 57–0 in 1962 against the Colts, which is the highest scoring differential in team history for a regular-season game.[84] The most notable moment between the two teams was Super Bowl XLI, with Indianapolis pulling away with the win despite Chicago dominance in the first half, which was also known for being the first ever Super Bowl to be played in rain,[85] the teams also share various relations with each other, including the relationship between former Colts coach Tony Dungy and Bears coach Lovie Smith, who both were on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and both coaches met in Super Bowl XLI. The Colts currently lead the series, 23–19, though the Bears have won the last two meetings both in 2008, 23-19 and in 2012, 41–21, because of the NFL's scheduling formula, The Bears and Colts will meet again in 2016 at Lucas Oil Stadium.

San Francisco 49ers: In the 1980s, the Bears and San Francisco 49ers have met twice in the postseason, as well as many times in the regular season. In the teams' first meeting in 1950, the Bears triumphed, 17–0; in the 1980s, the Bears went 3–4, including 2 postseason meetings. The 49ers won the first meeting in a 23–0 shutout, as well as the next meeting, 28–3; in 1985, the Bears claimed their revenge for their humiliating loss by sending in rookie William "The Refrigerator" Perry in at fullback in a 26–10 rout. Since the game, the Bears have lost all eight games at Candlestick Park, the last being a 32–7 loss in 2012;[86] in the 49ers' new stadium Levi's Stadium's opening game against the Bears, the Bears triumphed 28–20.[87] However, the 49ers won the most recent meeting on December 6, 2015 at Soldier Field, defeating the Bears 26–20, because both teams finished in last place in their respective divisions, the Bears and 49ers will meet again in 2016.

New York Giants: In a newer preseason rivalry (as well as an old rivalry), the Bears and Giants have taken each other on frequently in the preseason against each other since 2009, and since 2011, has been the 3rd game in the preseason (both teams didn't meet in 2010). The 2 teams have also shared some bad blood before the AFL-NFL merger, as the Bears defeated the Giants in the inaugural NFL Championship Game. The Giants would claim their revenge in the infamous "Sneakers Game" over the undefeated Bears, the Bears would defeat New York in the 1963 NFL Championship Game. In the recent decade, the Bears defeated the Giants in 2006, 38–20, and Bears rookie Devin Hester showed his ability to return on special teams when he tied a Bears record for longest play when he ran a missed field goal back 108 yards for a touchdown on Sunday Night Football,[88] the Giants would claim their revenge in 2010, when they defeated the Bears in a 17–3 victory, in which the Giants sacked Bears quarterback Jay Cutler nine times in the first half.[89] The Bears eventually won in 2013, 27–21, because of the NFL's scheduling formula, the Bears and Giants will meet again in 2016 at MetLife Stadium.

Soldier Field, located on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, is the current home of the Bears, the Bears moved to Soldier Field in 1971 after outgrowing Wrigley Field, the team's home for 50 years. Northwestern University's residential neighbors objected to their playing at Dyche Stadium, now called Ryan Field. After the AFL-NFL Merger, the newly merged league wanted their teams to play in stadiums that could hold at least 50,000 fans. Even with the portable bleachers that the team brought into Wrigley, the stadium could still only hold 46,000.[90] Soldier Field's playing turf was changed from natural grass to astroturf before the 1971 season, and then back to natural grass in time for the start of the 1988 season, the stadium was the site of the infamous Fog Bowl playoff game between the Bears and Philadelphia Eagles.[91]

In 2002, the stadium was closed and rebuilt with only the exterior wall of the stadium being preserved, it was closed on Sunday, January 20, 2002, a day after the Bears lost in the playoffs. It reopened on September 27, 2003 after a complete rebuild (the second in the stadium's history).[90] Many fans refer to the rebuilt stadium as "New Soldier Field",[92] during the 2002 season, the Bears played their home games at the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium in Champaign, where they went 3–5.

Many critics have negative views of the new stadium, they believe that its current structure has made it more of an eyesore than a landmark; some have dubbed it the "Mistake on the Lake".[93] Soldier Field was stripped of its National Historic Landmark designation on February 17, 2006.[94]

In the 2005 season, the Bears won the NFC North Division and the No. 2 Seed in the NFC Playoffs, entitling them to play at least one home game in the postseason. The team hosted (and lost) their divisional round match on January 15, 2006 against the Carolina Panthers, this was the first playoff game at Soldier Field since the stadium reopened.

The stadium's end zones and midfield were not painted until the 1982 season,[95] the design sported on the field included the bolded word "Chicago" rendered in Highway Gothic in both end zones. In 1983, the end zone design returned, with the addition of a large wishbone "C" Bears logo painted at midfield, these field markings remained unchanged until the 1996 season.[96] In 1996 the midfield wishbone "C" was changed to a large blue Bears head, and the end zone design were painted with "Bears" in cursive, this new design remained until the 1999 season, at which point the artwork was returned to the classic "Chicago" and the "C". In the new Soldier Field, the artwork was tweaked to where one end zone had the word "Chicago" bolded and the other had "Bears".[97]

While the Super Bowl XX Champion Bears were a fixture of mainstream American pop culture in the 1980s, the Bears made a prior mark with the 1971 American TV movie Brian's Song starring Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers and James Caan as Brian Piccolo. The film told of how Piccolo helped Sayers recover from a devastating knee injury to return to his status as one of the league's best players, and how Sayers in turn helped the Piccolo family through Brian's fatal illness.[98][99] A 2001 remake of the movie for ABC starred Sean Maher as Piccolo and Mekhi Phifer as Sayers.[100]

The 1985 team is also remembered for recording the song "The Super Bowl Shuffle", which reached number forty-one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for a Grammy Award.[101][102] The music video for the song depicts the team rapping that they are "not here to start no trouble" but instead "just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle", the team took a risk by recording and releasing the song before the playoffs had even begun, but were able to avoid embarrassment by going on to win Super Bowl XX by a then-record margin of 46–10. That game was one of the most watched television events in history according to the Nielsen ratings system; the game had a rating of 48.3, ranking it 7th in all-time television history.[103]

In addition to the "Super Bowl Shuffle"[104] rap song, the Bears' success in the 1980s – and especially the personality of head coach Mike Ditka – inspired a recurring sketch on the Americansketch comedyprogramSaturday Night Live, called "Bill Swerski's Superfans".[105] The sketch featured Cheers co-star George Wendt, a Chicago native, as host of a radio talk-show (similar in tone to WGN radio's "The Sportswriters"), with co-panelists Carl Wollarski (Robert Smigel), Pat Arnold (Mike Myers) and Todd O'Connor (Chris Farley). To hear them tell it, "Da Bears" and Coach Ditka could do no wrong, the sketch stopped after Ditka was fired in 1993. The sketch usually showed the panelists drinking lots of beer and eating lots of Polish sausage, and often featured Todd getting so agitated about what was happening with the Bears that he suffered a heart attack, but quickly recovered (through self-administered CPR). The sketch also features the cast predicting unrealistic blowout victories for Bears games.[106] Da Super Fan sketch has not been brought back by SNL, with the exception of a single appearance by Horatio Sanz as a Super Fan for the Cubs on "Weekend Update" in 2003. Outside of SNL, George Wendt reprised his role of Swerski in the opening promo of Super Bowl XL on ABC.

On TV shows based in Chicago such as The Bob Newhart Show, Married... with Children, Family Matters, Still Standing, According to Jim, Early Edition and The Bernie Mac Show, the main characters are all Bears fans, and have worn Bears' jerseys and T-shirts on some occasions. Some episodes even show them watching Bears games. Roseanne is another TV show based in Illinois (albeit not in Chicago itself) to feature the Bears as the consensus household favorite, as 'Dan Connor' John Goodman is seen wearing Bears hats in several episodes. That '70s Show featured several Bears references, as it was based in Wisconsin, home of the Packers. On one episode while the gang is at a Bears vs. Packers game, Eric comes to the seat in a Walter Payton jersey and is booed by the surrounding Packers fans; in an episode of the Disney Channel show Shake It Up, based in Chicago, recurring character Dina Garcia (Ainsley Bailey) sold scalped Chicago Bears tickets. More recently, Modern Family character Cameron Tucker has been shown as a Bears fan; in an episode of the Disney Channel show "I Didn't Do It", based in Chicago, Lindy Watson (Olivia Holt) and Logan Watson (Austin North) try to get a football signed by NFL Hall of Famer Dick Butkus after destroying their fathers Butkus signed ball, Alshon Jeffery also makes a cameo appearance as well.

Currently, WBBM (780 AM) and its simulcasting partner, WCFS-FM (105.9 FM) broadcast Bears games with Jeff Joniak doing the play-by-play, along with color commentator Tom Thayer, who played for the Bears from 1985–1992,[115] and sideline reporter Zach Zaidman. Over the years, many Bears play-by-play broadcasters have included play-by-play announcers Jack Brickhouse, Joe McConnell and Wayne Larrivee, and color commentators Hub Arkush, Dick Butkus, Jim Hart and Irv Kupcinet.

Spanish radio station WLEY-FM aired the Bears games from 2012 to 2014, since 2015, WRTO and WVIV-FM air Bears games in Spanish.

Their current preseason TV announcers on WFLD (channel 32), which also carries the majority of the team's regular season games through the NFL on Fox, are Sam Rosen (play-by-play), Erik Kramer (color commentary) and Lou Canellis (sideline reporter). When the games are played against an AFC team, it can be aired on the CBS O&O station, WBBM-TV. Sunday Night games are broadcast on WMAQ-TV, the NBC O&O station.

Patrick Mannelly holds the record for the most seasons in a Bears uniform with 16.[116] On the other hand, Steve McMichael holds the record for most consecutive games played by a Bear with 191;[116] he accomplished the feat from 1981 to 1993. In second place is Payton, who played 186 games from 1975 to 1987 at running back, a position considered to be conducive to injury, only missing one game in a span of 13 seasons.

Kicker Robbie Gould became the Bears' all-time scoring leader in Week 5 of 2015 season[117] overtaking placekickerKevin Butler who previously held the club record[116] for scoring the most points in his ten-year Bear career. He scored 1,116 points as the Bears kicker from 1985 to 1995, he is followed by running back Walter Payton, with 750 points. Payton holds the team record for career rushing yards with 16,726,[116] that was an NFL record until Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys broke it in 2002. Former Bears running back Matt Forte, who started playing for the Bears in 2008, is the closest to Payton's record with 6,985 yards. Forte also holds the team's single season record for rookies in rushing attempts, rushing yards and receptions. Mark Bortz holds the record for most Bear playoff appearances, with 13 between 1983 and 1994, and is followed by Kevin Butler, Dennis Gentry, Dan Hampton, Jay Hilgenberg, Steve McMichael, Ron Rivera, Mike Singletary, and Keith Van Horne, who have each played in 12 playoff games.

The 1940 Chicago Bears team holds the record for the biggest margin of victory in an NFL game (playoff or regular season) with a 73–0 victory over the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL Championship Game, the largest home victory for the Bears came in a 61–7 result against the Green Bay Packers in 1980. The largest defeat in club history was a 52–0 loss against the Baltimore Colts in 1964, the club recorded undefeated regular seasons in 1934 and 1942, but (unlike the 1972 Dolphins) did not win the championship game in either season. In 1934, the club completed a 13–0 record but were defeated by the New York Giants, and in 1942 the club completed an 11–0 record but were defeated by the Redskins. Had the Bears won either championship, the club would have completed a championship three-peat – a feat completed only by the Packers (twice), although no team has done it since the AFL-NFL merger.[118] Halas holds the team record for coaching the most seasons with 40 and for having the most career victories of 324. Halas' victories record stood until Don Shula surpassed Halas in 1993. Ditka is the closest Bears coach to Halas, with 112 career victories. No other Bears coach has recorded over 100 victories with the team.[116]

During the 2006 season, return specialist Devin Hester set several kick return records, he currently holds the franchise record for most return yards with 2,261.[119] He had six touchdown returns, setting a record for most returns in a single season;[120] in 2007, he recorded another six touchdown season from returns. One of the most notable of these returns came on November 12, 2006, when he returned a missed field goal for a 108-yard touchdown,[121] the record tied former teammate Nathan Vasher's previous record, which was set almost a year earlier.[122] Additionally, Hester set a Super Bowl record by becoming the first player to return an opening kick of a Super Bowl for a touchdown,[123] on December 20, 2010, Hester set an NFL record for most touchdowns on a punt or kickoff return with his 14th career return coming against the Minnesota Vikings. In 2011, Hester broke the record for the most punt returns against the Carolina Panthers.

In 2012, Charles Tillman has the record for most forced fumbles in a single game with 4 against the Tennessee Titans. Also against the Titans, Chicago became the first team in league history to score a touchdown pass, a touchdown run, an interception return for a touchdown, and a blocked kick/punt for a score in the same quarter.[124] Tillman and teammate Lance Briggs became the first pair in NFL history to return an interception for a touchdown in consecutive games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Dallas Cowboys.[125]

In the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Bears have the most enshrined primary members with 27, however the club also have had five Hall of Famers spend a minor portion of their career with the franchise.[129] Founder, owner, head coach, and player George Halas, halfbackBronko Nagurski, and Red Grange were a part of the original class of inductees in 1963. The franchise saw 14 individuals inducted into the Hall of Fame from 1963–1967. Defensive endRichard Dent, a member of the Super Bowl XX team is the most recent Bear inducted, a part of the Class of 2011.

Since 1998, the Bears have partnered with 'A Safe Place,' a domestic violence shelter in Waukegan, Illinois;[132] in June 2017, current and former Bears employees helped with renovations at the shelter by ripping up carpet, painting walls, demolishing a kitchen and building a fence.[132] The Bears have also provided financial support throughout the years.

1920 Decatur Staleys season
–
The 1920 Decatur Staleys season was their inaugural regular season completed in the newly formed American Professional Football Association. The club posted a 10–1–2 record under first year head coach/player George Halas earning them a finish in the team standings. The stars of the Staleys were Ed Dutch Sternaman, Jimmy Conzelman, Sternaman has a r

1.
1920 Decatur Staleys season

Soldier Field
–
Soldier Field is an American football stadium located in the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It opened in 1924 and is the field of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. With a football capacity of 61,500, it is the third-smallest stadium in the NFL, Soldier Field was designed in 1919 and opened on October 9,1924, as Municipal Gra

1.
Soldier Field in 2006

2.
Soldier Field

3.
Sculpture of a sailor and his family, gazing eastward, over Lake Michigan

4.
Aerial view from 2002, showing Soldier Field with interior demolished. Meigs Field is to the right in the image.

Chicago
–
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-la

Lake Forest, Illinois
–
Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 19,375, the city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was out as a town in 1857 as a stop for travelers making

1.
Lake Forest City Hall

2.
Market Square

3.
Former Marshall Field 's at Market Square; closed as of January 2008

4.
Entrance to department store on Market Square, documenting name change; closed as of January 2008

National Football League
–
The National Football League is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference. The NFL is one of the four professional sports leagues in North America. The NFLs 17-week regular season runs from the week after Labor Day to the week after C

1920 NFL season
–
The 1920 APFA season was the inaugural season of the American Professional Football Association—renamed the National Football League in 1922. The league was formed on August 20,1920, by independent professional American football teams from Ohio, at the meeting, they first called their new league the American Professional Football Conference. A seco

National Football Conference
–
The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League, the highest professional level of American football in the United States. This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference, currently contain 16 teams each, a series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since

1.
National Football Conference logo (2010-present)

Staley Da Bear
–
Staley Da Bear is the official mascot of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. He is a bear with a customized team jersey. Staleys name is eponymous to A. E. Staley, who founded the Bears’ franchise in 1919 and he debuted during the 2003 Chicago Bears season to entertain fans at Soldier Field. He has since participated in charity event

1.
Staley Da Bear, October 28, 2008.

John Fox (American football)
–
John Fox is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. In the 2013 NFL season, quarterback Peyton Manning threw for 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns, at the conclusion of the 2011 season, the Broncos finished tied for 3rd in the NFL in sacks and 1st in rushing offense, again with Fox. Fox rec

1.
Fox in June 2010

List of NFL champions
–
The National Football League champions, prior to the merger between the National Football League and American Football League in 1970, were determined by two different systems. The National Football League was established on September 17,1920, the APFA changed its name in 1922 to the National Football League, which it has retained ever since. From

NFL Playoff Game, 1932
–
The 1932 NFL Playoff Game was an extra game held to break a tie in the 1932 seasons final standings in the National Football League. It matched the host Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans, since the NFLs first season in 1920, the league title had been awarded to the team with the best regular season record based on winning percentage with ti

1.
1932 NFL Playoff Game

Super Bowl XX
–
The Bears defeated the Patriots by the score of 46–10, capturing their first NFL championship since 1963, three years prior to the birth of the Super Bowl. Super Bowl XX was played on January 26,1986 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans and this was the first of nine Super Bowl appearances for New England. To date, it is the fourth, and most r

NFC Championship Game
–
The National Football Conference Championship Game is one of the two semi-final playoff games of the National Football League, the largest professional American football league in the United States. The game is played on the penultimate Sunday in January and determines the champion of the National Football Conference, the winner then advances to fa

1.
NFC Championship Game logo, 2001–2005

2.
NFC Championship logo

2006-07 NFL playoffs
–
The National Football League playoffs for the 2006 season began on January 6,2007. The postseason tournament concluded with the Indianapolis Colts defeating the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, 29–17, on February 4, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, within each conference, the four division winners and the two wild card teams qualified for the p

1.
New England vs. New York Jets in the wild card playoff game

2001 NFL season
–
The 2001 NFL season was the 82nd regular season of the National Football League. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the NFLs week 2 games were postponed and re-scheduled to the weekend of January 6–7, in order to retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including Super Bowl XXXVI, were re-scheduled one week later. The New England Pa

2005 NFL season
–
The 2005 NFL season was the 86th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 8,2005 to January 1,2006, the playoffs began on January 7. This also marked the first time that a Sixth-seeded team, who by the nature of their seeding would play every game on the road, would advance to and win the Super Bow

1.
The Louisiana Superdome did not host the New Orleans Saints during the 2005 season, due in part to damage seen here.

2006 NFL season
–
The 2006 NFL season was the 87th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 7 to December 31,2006, the NFL title was eventually won by the Indianapolis Colts, when they defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium at Miami Gardens, Florida on February 4. Under the flexible-sc

2010 NFL season
–
The 2010 NFL season was the 91st regular season of the National Football League. Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots, was named MVP for the 2010 season, in Super Bowl XLV, the Leagues championship game played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31–25 to win their fourth Super

1932 NFL Playoff Game
–
The 1932 NFL Playoff Game was an extra game held to break a tie in the 1932 seasons final standings in the National Football League. It matched the host Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans, since the NFLs first season in 1920, the league title had been awarded to the team with the best regular season record based on winning percentage with ti

1.
1932 NFL Playoff Game

1934 NFL Championship Game
–
The 1934 National Football League Championship Game, also known as the Sneakers Game, was the second scheduled NFL championship game. Played at the Polo Grounds in New York City on December 9, with a remarkable fourth quarter, the New York Giants defeated the Chicago Bears 30–13. The defending champion Bears entered the game undefeated at 13–0, wit

1.
The NY Giants team that won the title.

1956 NFL Championship Game
–
In the 1956 National Football League Championship Game was the leagues 24th championship game, played at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in New York City on December 30. The New York Giants won the Eastern Conference title and hosted the Chicago Bears, the teams had met in the regular season five weeks earlier on November 25 at Yankee Stadium and playe

1.
1956 NFL Championship Game

Wrigley Field
–
Wrigley Field /ˈrɪɡli/ is a baseball park located on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the citys two Major League Baseball franchises and it first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghmans Chicago Whales of the Federal League, which folded after the 1915 baseball season. The Cubs played thei

1.
Wrigley Field

2.
Wrigley Field in 2004

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3,990-square foot videoboard overlooking new left field bleacher seats

4.
Wrigley Field is known for its distinctive ivy-covered outfield walls.

Memorial Stadium (Champaign)
–
Memorial Stadium is a football stadium in Champaign, Illinois, in the United States, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The stadium is a memorial to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students who died in World War I, the stadium is primarily used as the home of the Universitys football team. In the early 1

George Halas
–
George Stanley Halas Sr. nicknamed Papa Bear and Mr. Everything, was a player, coach, and owner involved with professional American football. He was the founder and owner of the National Football Leagues Chicago Bears and he was also lesser known as an inventor, jurist, radio producer, philanthropist, philatelist, and Major League Baseball player.

Edward Sternaman
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Edward Sternaman, better known as Dutch, was an American player, coach, and owner in professional football for the NFLs Chicago Bears. Sternaman and George Halas took over management of the Decatur Staleys in 1920 when both were working for the A. E. Staley Co. a corn products firm in Decatur, Sternaman and Halas both starred in football at the Uni

1.
Edward "Dutch" Sternaman

American football
–
The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, or else they turn over the football to the opposing team, if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs. Points are primarily scored by advancing the ball into the teams end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponents goalposts for a field goal. The te

Chicago, Illinois
–
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-la

Pro Football Hall of Fame
–
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football. As of 2017, there are a total of 310 members of the Hall of Fame, groundbreaking for the building was held on August 11,1962. The original building contained just two rooms, and 19,000 square feet of interior space, in April 1970, ground was broken for the first o

1.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio

2.
The Hall is made up of several sections, at heart is the display of inductees.

Retired jersey
–
Retiring the number of an athlete is an honor a team bestows upon a player, usually after the player has left the team, retires from the sport or dies. Once a number is retired, no player from the team may wear that number on their uniform, unless the player so-honored permits it, however. Such an honor may also be bestowed on players who had highl

Decatur, Illinois
–
Decatur /dəˈkeɪtər/ is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U. S. state of Illinois. The city was founded in 1829 and is along the Sangamon River, in 2015, the citys estimated population was 73,254. The city is home of private Millikin University and public Richland Community College. s wheel-tractor scrapers, off-highway tru

1.
Decatur downtown

2.
The Decatur Transfer House in the background in downtown's Central Park

3.
Trolley transfer station in its original location at the intersection of Main and Main streets; from a postcard sent in 1906

Arizona Cardinals
–
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football franchise based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League as a member of the leagues National Football Conference West division, the Cardinals were founded as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898, and are the oldest continuously run professional foo

North Side, Chicago
–
These areas are well-defined and static. Census data are tied to the community areas, and they serve as the basis for a variety of urban planning initiatives on both the local and regional levels, the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago defined seventy-five community areas during the late 1920s. At the time, these community a

1.
Contents

Near South Side, Chicago
–
The Near South Side is a community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located just south of the central business district, the Loop. The remaining area is undergoing a major residential and mixed-use redevelopment. The Near South Side is one of the most dynamic of Chicagos communities, the Near South Side was initially n

Lake Michigan
–
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U. S. and it is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east,

Green Bay Packers
–
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues National Football Conference North division. They are also the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, organized and it is the only non-profit, community-owned major league profession

Olivet Nazarene University
–
Olivet Nazarene University is a Christian liberal arts university located in the village of Bourbonnais, Illinois, United States. Named for Olivet, Illinois, ONU was originally established as a school in east-central Illinois in 1907. It is affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene and is the site of the Churchs Regional Celebrate Life youth gathe

1.
ONU athletics logo

2.
Olivet Nazarene University

Bourbonnais, Illinois
–
Bourbonnais is a village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. The population was 15,256 at the 2000 census, but had grown to 18,631 in for the 2010 census and it is part of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Chicago–Naperville–Michigan City, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area. By 1830, it had a monopoly o

1.
Notre-Dame Convent and Virgin Mary Elementary School 1883

2.
Seal

History of the Chicago Bears
–
The Chicago Bears American football franchise is a charter member of the National Football League and have played in all of the leagues 97 seasons. The Bears have captured nine NFL championships – eight NFL championships, the club has played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920. Through the 2012 season, they l

1.
The 1920 Decatur Staleys.

2.
Bears logo.

3.
George Halas as player-coach of the Chicago Bears during the 1922 season.

4.
Team photo of the Bears, 1932 league champions.

Pete Rozelle
–
Alvin Ray Pete Rozelle was the commissioner of the National Football League for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 to November 1989, when he retired from office. He is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful leagues in the world. Born in South Gate, California, Rozelle grew up in neighboring Lynwood during the Great Depress

Chicago Cubs
–
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League Central division. The team plays its games at Wrigley Field, located on the citys North Side. The Cubs are one of two league teams in Chicago, the other, the Chicago White Sox, is a membe

1.
The 1876 White Stockings won the N.L. Championship

2.
Team logo

3.
The 1906 Cubs won a record 116 of 154 games. They then won back-to-back World Series titles in 1907–08

4.
Club logo 1927 - 1936

Baseball
–
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on t

Pantone
–
Pantone Inc. is a corporation headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. X-Rite Inc. a supplier of color measurement instruments and software, Pantone began in New York City in the 1950s as the commercial printing company of M & J Levine Advertising. In 1956, its founders, advertising executives brothers Mervin and Jesse Levine, for instance, a partic

1.
A logo designed by the Government of Singapore to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the nation's independence. The usage instructions for the logo described it as being in Pantone Red 032 and White.

Canton Bulldogs
–
The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and its successor, the Bulldogs would go on to win the 1917,1918 and 1919 Ohio League championships. They were the NFL champions in 1922 and 1923, in 1921–1923, the Bulldogs played 25 straight gam

1.
1906 Canton Bulldogs

2.
Canton Bulldogs vs. Massillon Tigers on November 24, 1906

Red Grange
–
His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League. He was a member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame. In college, Grange was a three-time consensus All-American, leading his team to a championship in 1923. He was the only consensus All-American running back in 1924 who was not a member of the Four Horsemen,

Portsmouth Spartans
–
The professional American football team now known as the Detroit Lions previously played in Portsmouth, Ohio from its founding in 1929 to its relocation to Detroit in 1934. This article chronicles the history during their time as the Portsmouth Spartans. Originally drawing players from defunct independent professional and semi-pro teams, they joine

Chicago Stadium
–
Chicago Stadium was an indoor arena located in Chicago. It opened in 1929, and closed in 1994, the Stadium hosted the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL from 1929–1994 and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA from 1967–1994. The stadium was first proposed by Chicago sports promoter Paddy Harmon, Harmon wanted to bring an NHL team to Chicago, but he lost out to

1.
The interior of Chicago Stadium in 1930

2.
Chicago Stadium

3.
Chicago Stadium at Night, 1950 Curteich Linen Postcard

4.
Detail of console of the huge Barton pipe organ originally installed in the Chicago Stadium. The massive console boasted six manuals (keyboards) and over 800 stops, with thousands of pipes and percussions installed in the center ceiling high above center court.

New York Giants
–
The New York Giants are a professional American football team located in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues National Football Conference East division. The team plays its games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Giants hold their training camp at the Quest

1.
Al Blozis, Giants tackle, died in World War II. According to Mel Hein, "If he hadn't been killed, he could have been the greatest tackle who ever played football."

1.
1920 Decatur Staleys season
–
The 1920 Decatur Staleys season was their inaugural regular season completed in the newly formed American Professional Football Association. The club posted a 10–1–2 record under first year head coach/player George Halas earning them a finish in the team standings. The stars of the Staleys were Ed Dutch Sternaman, Jimmy Conzelman, Sternaman has a remarkable season with 11 rushing TDs,1 receiving TDs,4 field goals, and 3 PATs, totaling 87 points scored out of the Staleys total of 164. Jimmy Conzelman ran for two scores and threw two more, Halas led the team in receiving scores with 2. In the last league game of the season, the Staleys needed a win versus Akron to have a chance at the title, Akron, predictably, played for a tie, achieved that, and won the first APFA title. The Decatur Staleys finished 6–1 in their 1919 season as an independent team and their 1919 owner, George Chamberlain, asked George Halas to help own the team, and Halas accepted. At the meeting, they agreed on a salary cap. They also agreed on a name for the circuit, the American Professional Football Conference and they then invited other professional teams to a second meeting on September 17. Representatives of the Buffalo All-Americans and Rochester Jeffersons could not attend the meeting, Team representatives changed the leagues name slightly to the American Professional Football Association and elected officers, installing Jim Thorpe as president. Under the new structure, teams created their schedules dynamically as the season progressed. Also, representatives of each team voted to determine the winner of the APFA trophy, the table below was compiled using the information from NFL History, which used various contemporary newspapers. If a team has a dagger, then that team in a non-APFA team, for the results column, the winning teams score is posted first followed by the result for the Staleys. For the attendance, if a cell is greyed out and has N/A, the green-colored cells indicates a win, the yellow-colored cells indicates a tie, and the red-colored cells indicate a loss. October 17,1920, at Douglas Park After two games against non-APFA teams, the Staleys played against the APFA Rock Island Independents, november 7,1920, at Douglas Park On a five-game winning streak, the Staleys played against the Independents again. The game ended in a 0–0 tie, several injuries occurred throughout the game for the Independents. Sid Nichols, Fred Chicken, and Oke smith injured their knees on different plays, harry Gunderson was hit late by George Traften and the former had to get thirteen stitches on his face, and his hand was broken. November 14,1920, at Nicollet Park To conclude their six-game road game streak, the Marines were a non-APFA team but joined the league in 1921. The only score of the game was a 25-yard field goal from Sternaman, december 12,1920, at Cubs Park The Staleys ended their season in week 12 against he Akron Pros

1920 Decatur Staleys season
–
1920 Decatur Staleys season

2.
Soldier Field
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Soldier Field is an American football stadium located in the Near South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It opened in 1924 and is the field of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. With a football capacity of 61,500, it is the third-smallest stadium in the NFL, Soldier Field was designed in 1919 and opened on October 9,1924, as Municipal Grant Park Stadium. The name was changed to Soldier Field on November 11,1925 and its formal dedication as Soldier Field was on Saturday, November 27,1926, during the 29th annual playing of the Army–Navy Game. Its design is in the Neoclassical style, with Doric columns rising above the East and West entrances, the stadium cost $13 million to construct, a very large sum for a sporting venue at that time. In its earliest configuration, Soldier Field was capable of seating 74,280 spectators and was in the shape of a U. Additional seating could be added along the field, upper promenades and on the large, open field and terrace beyond the north endzone. Soldier Field was used as a site for many sporting events, the Chicago Cardinals used it as their home field for their final season in Chicago in 1959. A dozen years later in September 1971, the Chicago Bears moved in and they had intended to build a stadium in Arlington Heights. In 1978, the Bears and the Chicago Park District agreed to a 20-year lease, both parties pooled their resources for the renovation. The playing surface was AstroTurf from 1971 through 1987, replaced with grass in 1988. In 1989, Soldier Fields future was in jeopardy after a proposal was created for a McDome, which was intended to be a stadium for the Bears. Because of this, Bears president Michael McCaskey considered relocation as a factor for a new stadium. The Bears had also purchased options in Hoffman Estates and Aurora, in 1995, McCaskey announced that he and Northwest Indiana developers agreed to construction of an entertainment complex called Planet Park, which would also include a new stadium. However, the plan was rejected by the Lake County Council, beginning in 1978, the plank seating was replaced by individual seats with backs and armrests. In 1982, a new press box as well as 60 skyboxes were added to the stadium, in 1988,56 more skyboxes were added increasing capacity to 66,946. Capacity was slightly increased to 66,950 in 1992, by 1994, capacity was slightly reduced to 66,944. During the renovation, seating capacity was reduced to 55,701 by building a grandstand in the end of the U shape

Soldier Field
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Soldier Field in 2006
Soldier Field
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Soldier Field
Soldier Field
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Sculpture of a sailor and his family, gazing eastward, over Lake Michigan
Soldier Field
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Aerial view from 2002, showing Soldier Field with interior demolished. Meigs Field is to the right in the image.

3.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage

4.
Lake Forest, Illinois
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Lake Forest is a city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 19,375, the city is along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was out as a town in 1857 as a stop for travelers making their way south to Chicago. The Lake Forest City Hall, designed by Charles Sumner Frost, was completed in 1898 and originally housed the department, the Lake Forest Library. Lake Forest is located in the North Shore area of Chicago, according to the 2010 census, Lake Forest has a total area of 17.246 square miles, of which 17.18 square miles is land and 0.066 square miles is water. The Potawatomi inhabited Lake County before money and violence pushed them away in 1836, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Jens Jensen also designed projects in Lake Forest. Market Square, designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw, was completed in 1916 as a center for Lake Forest. The secluded style of Lake Forest was no accident, indeed, country clubs became important centers of social activity in Lake Forests early years, and the Onwentsia Club was, in the words of one writer, the premiere social and sporting club in the Midwest. After-dinner entertainment included a minstrel show, one of Lake Forests most notable features is its virgin prairies and other nature preserves. In 1967, a group of 12 long-time residents of Lake Forest formed a conservation organization. In the next 38 years, the managed to acquire over 700 acres within the city limits. Preserved in perpetuity are wetlands, original pre-1830 prairie, woodland, the Ragdale Foundation, an artists community and residence, is located in Lake Forest. Formerly Howard Van Doren Shaws summer retreat and built in 1897, in 1992, Lake Forest gained national attention when it attempted to ban the sale of offensive music to anyone under the age of 18. City council members used existing ordinances against obscenity—defined in the codes as morbid interest in nudity, mayor Charles Clarke stated, If they sell an obscene tape to somebody underage, we will prosecute. The person who came up most frequently in discussions of obscene content was Ice-T, Lake Forest has been named a Tree City USA by the National Arbor Day Foundation in recognition of its commitment to community forest. As of 2006, Lake Forest had received this honor for 26 years. The actor Mr. T notably angered the town by cutting more than 100 oak trees on his estate. Commercial development in Lake Forest is focused in three areas, two of which have railway stations

5.
National Football League
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The National Football League is a professional American football league consisting of 32 teams, divided equally between the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference. The NFL is one of the four professional sports leagues in North America. The NFLs 17-week regular season runs from the week after Labor Day to the week after Christmas, with each team playing 16 games, the NFL was formed in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association before renaming itself the National Football League for the 1922 season. The NFL agreed to merge with the American Football League in 1966, and the first Super Bowl was held at the end of that season, the merger was completed in 1970. Today, the NFL has the highest average attendance of any sports league in the world and is the most popular sports league in the United States. S. The NFLs executive officer is the commissioner, who has authority in governing the league. The team with the most NFL championships is the Green Bay Packers with thirteen, the current NFL champions are the New England Patriots, who defeated the Atlanta Falcons 34–28 in Super Bowl LI. Another meeting held on September 17,1920 resulted in the renaming of the league to the American Professional Football Association, the league hired Jim Thorpe as its first president, and consisted of 14 teams. Only two of these teams, the Decatur Staleys and the Chicago Cardinals, remain, the first event occurred on September 26,1920 when the Rock Island Independents defeated the non-league St. Paul Ideals 48–0 at Douglas Park. On October 3,1920, the first full week of league play occurred, the following season resulted in the Chicago Staleys controversially winning the title over the Buffalo All-Americans. In 1922, the APFA changed its name to the National Football League, in 1932, the season ended with the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans tied for first in the league standings. This method had used since the leagues creation in 1920. The league quickly determined that a game between Chicago and Portsmouth was needed to decide the leagues champion. Playing with altered rules to accommodate the playing field, the Bears won the game 9–0. Fan interest in the de facto championship game led the NFL, beginning in 1933, the 1934 season also marked the first of 12 seasons in which African Americans were absent from the league. The de facto ban was rescinded in 1946, following public pressure, the NFL was always the foremost professional football league in the United States, it nevertheless faced a large number of rival professional leagues through the 1930s and 1940s. Rival leagues included at least three separate American Football Leagues and the All-America Football Conference, on top of regional leagues of varying caliber. Three NFL teams trace their histories to these leagues, including the Los Angeles Rams

6.
1920 NFL season
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The 1920 APFA season was the inaugural season of the American Professional Football Association—renamed the National Football League in 1922. The league was formed on August 20,1920, by independent professional American football teams from Ohio, at the meeting, they first called their new league the American Professional Football Conference. A second organizational meeting was held in Canton on September 17, at the meeting, the name of the league became the American Professional Football Association. Four other teams joined the Association during the year. Meanwhile, Jim Thorpe of the Canton Bulldogs was named the APFAs first president, scheduling was left up to each team. There were wide variations, both in the number of games played and in the number played against other Association members. Thus, no standings were maintained. In addition, football teams in the APFA also faced independent football teams not associated with the league, for instance, the Rochester Jeffersons played a schedule consisting mostly of local teams from their local sandlot circuit and the NYPFL, not the APFA. The Akron Pros ended the season as the undefeated team in the Association. Despite this, two one-loss teams—the Decatur Staleys and Buffalo All-Americans—who both tied Akron that year made cases for a co-championship. At the league meetings in Akron on April 30,1921, the Pros were awarded the Brunswick-Balke Collender Cup for the 1920 season, according to modern NFL tie-breaking rules, the 1920 Buffalo All-Americans would be co-champions. They would be tied with the Akron Pros in win percentage,9.5 wins to 1.5 losses, both teams beating out the Staleys, who would have a season that counted 11 wins to 2 losses. Prior to the APFA, there were several other loose, professional organizations, the representatives then contacted other major professional teams and invited them to a meeting for September 17. Representatives of the Buffalo All-Americans and Rochester Jeffersons could not attend the meeting, under the new league structure, teams created their schedules dynamically as the season progressed, so there were no minimum or maximum number of games needed to be played. Also, representatives of each team voted to determine the winner of the APFA trophy, the regular-season schedule was not fixed but was created dynamically by each team as the season progressed. The following table was formed by NFL History, which used contemporary newspapers, the first game involving an APFA team occurred on September 26, when the Rock Island Independents beat the St. Paul Ideals 48–0. The first official game between APFA members occurred on October 3, when the Dayton Triangles beat the Columbus Panhandles 14-0, the Triangles Lou Partlow scored the leagues first touchdown and George Hobby Kinderline kicked the first extra point. An historic marker placed by the Ohio Historical Society at Triangle Park in Dayton marks the location of that first ever game, the final game of the season was a 14–14 tie between the Racine Cardinals and the Chicago Staleys on December 19,1920

7.
National Football Conference
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The National Football Conference is one of the two conferences of the National Football League, the highest professional level of American football in the United States. This conference and its counterpart, the American Football Conference, currently contain 16 teams each, a series of league expansions and division realignments have occurred since the merger, thus making the current total 16 clubs per each conference. Since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, the Dallas Cowboys lead the NFC with the most conference titles, the current NFC title holders are the Atlanta Falcons. Since 2002, the NFC has 16 teams that organized into four divisions each with four teams, East, North, South, two of these games are assigned on the basis of a particular teams final divisional standing from the previous season. The remaining 8 games are split between the roster of two other NFL divisions and this assignment shifts each year and will follow a standard cycle. Using the 2012 regular season schedule as an example, each team in the NFC West plays against every team in the AFC East and NFC North. In this way, non-divisional competition will be mostly among common opponents – the exception being the two games assigned based on the teams prior-season divisional standing, at the end of each season, the top six teams in the conference proceeds into the playoff. These teams consist of the four winners and the top two wild card teams. The NFC playoffs culminate in the NFC Championship Game with the receiving the George Halas Trophy. The NFC Champion then plays the AFC Champion in the Super Bowl, both the AFC and NFC were created after the NFL merged with the American Football League in 1970. When the AFL began play in 1960 with eight teams, the NFL consisted of 13 clubs, by 1969, the AFL had expanded to ten teams and NFL to 16 clubs. However, team owners could not agree to a plan on how to align the clubs in the NFC. When the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the league in 1976, they were placed in the NFC and AFC, respectively. The Seahawks returned to the NFC as a result of the 2002 realignment, the Carolina Panthers joined the NFC in 1995. Parity is generally greater among NFC teams than AFC teams, the only NFC team that has never made a Super Bowl appearance is the Detroit Lions. Since the 2002 realignment, the time that an NFC team made back-to-back Super Bowl appearances was the Seattle Seahawks in 2013 and 2014. Since 1970, only two teams have relocated, in 1988, the St. Louis Cardinals moved to Phoenix, Arizona, while the Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995, and back to Los Angeles again in 2016. The original NFC logo, in use from 1970–2009, depicted a blue N with three stars across it, the three stars represented the three divisions that were used from 1970–2001

National Football Conference
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National Football Conference logo (2010-present)

8.
Staley Da Bear
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Staley Da Bear is the official mascot of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. He is a bear with a customized team jersey. Staleys name is eponymous to A. E. Staley, who founded the Bears’ franchise in 1919 and he debuted during the 2003 Chicago Bears season to entertain fans at Soldier Field. He has since participated in charity events, parties, Chicago Rush games. Staley has also made cameos on television, especially during the teams Super Bowl run in 2006. Through 2007, Staleys winning percentage with the Bears is.537, Staley was named a three-time Pro Bowl mascot in 2004,2006 and 2007. At halftime, Staley and his furballs would take on a group of players from Naperville. Staley also frequently attends annual holiday parties hosted by the Bears, Staley has also appeared in the Elmhurst St. Patricks Day Parade. Staley and other NFL mascots have also participated in Halloween events, Staley also visits area schools to promote and participate in anti-bullying assemblies and programs. Staleys Bio on the Chicago Bears website

Staley Da Bear
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Staley Da Bear, October 28, 2008.

9.
John Fox (American football)
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John Fox is an American football coach who is the head coach of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. In the 2013 NFL season, quarterback Peyton Manning threw for 5,477 yards and 55 touchdowns, at the conclusion of the 2011 season, the Broncos finished tied for 3rd in the NFL in sacks and 1st in rushing offense, again with Fox. Fox received a degree in physical education and earned teaching credentials from San Diego State. He then proceeded to the NFL as an agent and signed a two-year contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After that contract was over he retired from the NFL, Fox was a great defensive backs coach at U. S. International University. Sid Gillman, past head coach of the San Diego Chargers, was the director at the time. In 1980, Fox was the defensive coach for the Boise State University Broncos when they won the NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship. In 1983, Fox was a member of Mike Gottfrieds University of Kansas staff, Fox followed Gottfried to the University of Pittsburgh when Gottfried became Head Coach at Pitt in 1986. Fox was first the Defensive Backs coach and then was promoted to Defensive Coordinator by Gottfried, while at Pitt, Fox made some contacts with Pittsburgh Steeler coaches and when Gottfried was let go by Pitt, Fox got his first NFL coaching gig with the Steelers. Fox began his first professional coaching stint in the short-lived United States Football League with the Los Angeles Express in 1985. He entered the NFL in 1989 as the coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Fox was the coordinator for the Los Angeles Raiders and later that of the New York Giants during Super Bowl XXXV. In 2002, Fox was signed as the head coach of the Carolina Panthers. Foxs first regular game was a 10–7 victory over the Baltimore Ravens which ended the Panthers 15-game losing streak dating to the previous season. Fox and the Panthers posted a 7–9 record for the 2002 season, in the 2003 season Fox led the Panthers to Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing 32–29 to the New England Patriots on a last-second field goal by Adam Vinatieri. Fox joined Vince Lombardi as the other coach to inherit a team that had won only one game in the season prior. Fox also took the Carolina Panthers to the NFC Championship game in the 2005 season, the 2006 season was disappointing for Fox and the Panthers, as a team that had Super Bowl aspirations finished 8-8 and out of the playoffs. The 2007 season saw the finish with a record of 7–9, before finishing with a 12–4 record in the 2008 season

John Fox (American football)
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Fox in June 2010

10.
List of NFL champions
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The National Football League champions, prior to the merger between the National Football League and American Football League in 1970, were determined by two different systems. The National Football League was established on September 17,1920, the APFA changed its name in 1922 to the National Football League, which it has retained ever since. From 1921 to 1931, the APFA/NFL determined its champion by overall win–loss record, with no playoff games, ties were not counted in the winning percentage total. The APFA did not keep records of the 1920 season, they declared the Akron Pros, the Canton Bulldogs won two straight championships from 1922 to 1923, and the Green Bay Packers won three in a row from 1929 to 1931. The 1932 NFL season resulted in an tie for first place between the Chicago Bears and Portsmouth Spartans, and could not be resolved by the typical win–loss system, to settle the tie, a playoff game was played, Chicago won the game and the championship. The following year the NFL split into two divisions, and the winner of each division would play in the NFL Championship Game, the NFL Championship Game was ended after the 1969 season, succeeded by the NFC Championship Game. The champions of that play the champions of the AFC Championship Game in the Super Bowl to determine the NFL champion. The Green Bay Packers won the most NFL championships before the merger, the Packers were also the only team to win three straight championships, an achievement they accomplished twice, from 1929–31 and from 1965–67. The Chicago Bears won a total of eight titles, and the Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, the Bears recorded the largest victory in a championship game, defeating the Washington Redskins 73–0 in the 1940 NFL Championship Game, six other title games ended in a shutout as well. The Philadelphia Eagles recorded two shutouts in 1948 and 1949. The number in parentheses indicates the number of championships the franchise had won to that point, numbers in parentheses in the table indicate the number of times that team won the NFL championship as of the championship game. Teams winning the NFL Championship during these years move onward to compete in the first four Super Bowls, the Green Bay Packers continued on to win the first two Super Bowls. The latter two teams, the Baltimore Colts and Minnesota Vikings, lost in their respective Super Bowls and these two losing teams are still credited with the NFL Championship in their official record. However, they are not considered as world champions

List of NFL champions
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The 1920 Akron Pros were named the first APFA (NFL) champions.

11.
NFL Playoff Game, 1932
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The 1932 NFL Playoff Game was an extra game held to break a tie in the 1932 seasons final standings in the National Football League. It matched the host Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans, since the NFLs first season in 1920, the league title had been awarded to the team with the best regular season record based on winning percentage with ties excluded. In 1932, the Spartans and the Bears tied for first place with 6-1 records, the Packers controlled their own destiny at the end of the 1932 season, but lost their final two games to the Spartans and Bears. Further complicating matters, the Spartans and Bears had played and tied each other twice during the regular season, so, for the first time, the league arranged for what amounted to a replay game to determine the NFL champion. Because the game was counted in the standings, the loser would drop to 6–2 and finish third. The league had to make a change to allow the game. Two years earlier, the Bears and Cardinals had played a charity game at the arena. The game was moved primarily to ensure adequate attendance and gate revenue. The sidelines were butted up against the stands, the goal posts were moved from the endlines to the goal lines. The ball was moved back 20 yards every time one team crossed the 10-yard line. For the first time, all started with the ball on or between the hash marks, which were ten yards from the sidelines. Additionally, drop kicks and field goals were banned, with terrible footing on the mulch and limited room for the offenses to work, the defenses dominated the games first three quarters, and the game remained scoreless. Rules at the time mandated that a forward pass had to be thrown from at least five yards behind the line of scrimmage, the Spartans argued that Nagurski did not drop back five yards before passing to Grange, but the touchdown stood. The Bears later scored a safety after the Spartans fumbled the ball out of their end-zone, the high temperature for that Sunday in Chicago was 20 °F, warmer than anticipated earlier in the week. Brown Head Linesman, Meyer Morris Because it proved so popular, through 1932, the league had used the same rules as college football. Beginning with the 1933 season, the NFL introduced its own set of rules, in 1933, the NFL expanded to ten teams and divided into two divisions. The division winners met in a championship game to determine the NFL champion. The 1932 NFL Playoff Game is also regarded as the first major football game

NFL Playoff Game, 1932
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1932 NFL Playoff Game

12.
Super Bowl XX
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The Bears defeated the Patriots by the score of 46–10, capturing their first NFL championship since 1963, three years prior to the birth of the Super Bowl. Super Bowl XX was played on January 26,1986 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans and this was the first of nine Super Bowl appearances for New England. To date, it is the fourth, and most recent, presently, this would only occur again if the Detroit Lions faced either the Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, or the Houston Texans. The Bears entered the game becoming the second team in NFL history to win 15 regular season games. With their then-revolutionary 46 defense, Chicago led the league in defensive categories, outscored their opponents with a staggering margin of 456–198. The Patriots were considered a Cinderella team during the 1985 season, and posted an 11–5 regular season record, but defying the odds, New England posted three road playoff wins to advance to Super Bowl XX. In their victory over the Patriots, the Bears set or tied Super Bowl records for sacks, fewest rushing yards allowed, and margin of victory. At the time, New England broke the record for the quickest lead in Super Bowl history, Bears defensive end Richard Dent, who had 1.5 quarterback sacks, forced two fumbles, and blocked a pass, was named the games Most Valuable Player. The telecast of the game on NBC was watched by an estimated 92.57 million viewers, to commemorate the 20th Super Bowl, all previous Super Bowl MVPs were honored during the pregame ceremonies. NFL owners awarded the hosting of Super Bowl XX to New Orleans, Louisiana on December 14,1982 and this was the sixth time that New Orleans hosted the Super Bowl. Tulane Stadium was the site of Super Bowls IV, VI, as of 2016, Super Bowl XX remains the last Super Bowl to feature two teams both making their first appearance in the game. It was the fourth overall following Super Bowl I, Super Bowl III, any future Super Bowl that would have such a combination would have to have the Detroit Lions playing either the Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, or Jacksonville Jaguars in the game. All 16 NFC teams have played in an NFL championship game, the nations recognition of the Bears accomplishment was overshadowed by STS 51-L two days later, an event which caused the cancellation of the Bears post-Super Bowl White House visit. Twenty-five years after the championship, surviving members of the team would be invited to the White House in 2011 by President Barack Obama. The Bears defense, the 46 defense, allowed the fewest points, fewest total yards and they also led the league in interceptions and ranked third in sacks. Pro Bowl quarterback Jim McMahon provided the team with a passing attack, throwing for 2,392 yards and 15 touchdowns, while also rushing for 252 yards. Running back Walter Payton, who was then the NFLs all-time leading rusher with 14,860 yards and he also caught 49 passes for 483 yards, and scored 11 touchdowns. Linebacker Mike Singletary won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award by recording three sacks, three fumble recoveries, and one interception, but one of the most distinguishable players on defense was a large rookie lineman named William The Refrigerator Perry

13.
NFC Championship Game
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The National Football Conference Championship Game is one of the two semi-final playoff games of the National Football League, the largest professional American football league in the United States. The game is played on the penultimate Sunday in January and determines the champion of the National Football Conference, the winner then advances to face the winner of the American Football Conference Championship Game in the Super Bowl. The game was established as part of the 1970 merger between the NFL and the American Football League, with the merged league realigning into two conferences. Since 1984, each winner of the NFC Championship Game has also received the George Halas Trophy, named after the founder and longtime owner of the NFLs Chicago Bears, George Halas. The first NFC Championship Game was played following the 1970 regular season after the merger between the NFL and the American Football League. The game is considered the successor to the original NFL Championship, every NFC team has played in an NFC Championship at least once. The Seattle Seahawks, who have members in both the AFC and the NFC, hold the distinction of appearing in both conference title games. Only the Detroit Lions have yet to win an NFC Championship Game, at the end of each regular season, a series of playoff games involving the top six teams in the NFC are conducted. In the current NFL playoff structure, this consists of the four division champions, the two teams remaining following the Wild Card round and the divisional round play in the NFC Championship game. Initially, the site of the game was determined on a rotating basis, since the 1975–76 season, the site of the NFC Championship has been based on playoff seeding based on the regular season won-loss record, with the highest surviving seed hosting the game. A wild card team can only host the game if both participants are wild cards, in case the fifth seed would host the sixth seed. Such an instance has never occurred in the NFL, the original design consisted of a wooden base with a sculpted NFC logo in the front and a sculpture of various football players in the back. The trophies are now a new, silver design with the outline of a hollow football positioned on a base to more closely resemble the Vince Lombardi Trophy. Numbers in parentheses in the winning team column are NFC Championships won by that team, bold indicates team won Super Bowl that year. Numbers in parentheses in the city and stadium column is the amount of times that area and stadium has hosted a NFC Championship. ^ a, Overtime ^ b, The Seahawks were members of the NFC in 1976 and then members of the AFC from 1977–2001, including their only appearance in the AFC Championship Game, they hold a combined 3–1 record between both Conference Championship Games

14.
2006-07 NFL playoffs
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The National Football League playoffs for the 2006 season began on January 6,2007. The postseason tournament concluded with the Indianapolis Colts defeating the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, 29–17, on February 4, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, within each conference, the four division winners and the two wild card teams qualified for the playoffs. The four division winners are seeded 1 through 4 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, the NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there are no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. In the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend, the division winner hosts the sixth seed wild card. The 1 and 2 seeds from each conference then receive a bye in the first round, in the second round, the divisional playoffs, the number 1 seed hosts the worst surviving seed from the first round, while the number 2 seed will play the other team. The two surviving teams from each divisional playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games. Although the Super Bowl, the fourth and final round of the playoffs, is played at a neutral site, * Indicates overtime victory Despite quarterback Peyton Mannings three interceptions, the Indianapolis Colts out-gained the Kansas City Chiefs in total yards, 435–126, and first downs, 23–8. Indianapoliss defense forced three turnovers, four sacks, and prevented Kansas City from gaining a single first down until late in the third quarter, the game was never in question despite Mannings turnovers as Indy dominated Kansas City from start to finish to earn a trip to Baltimore. The Colts opened up the scoring on their first drive of the game with Adam Vinatieris 48-yard field goal. The next time they had the ball, they drove 68 yards to the Kansas City 2-yard line, after another Kansas City punt, Chiefs cornerback Ty Law intercepted a pass from Manning and returned it 43 yards to the Colts 9-yard line. But Kansas City failed to get the ball into the end zone with three rushing attempts and came up empty when Lawrence Tynes 23-yard field goal hit the left upright. The Chiefs ended the half with 16 total yards and no first downs and this was the first time in the modern era and the first time since 1960 that an NFL team had been held without an offensive first down in the first half of a playoff game. On the Colts opening possession of the half, Manning threw his third interception of the game. Indianapolis then drove 89 yards in 12 plays and scored with Joseph Addais 6-yard touchdown run, Kansas City got their first first down of the game on their ensuing possession, driving 60 yards in eight plays. However, the Colts increased their lead to 23–8 on a 71-yard, indianapoliss defense forced three turnovers on the Chiefs last three drives to clinch the victory. Early in the quarter, Seattle drove 54 yards and retook the lead with Browns second field goal of the game. After an exchange of punts, the Cowboys took the lead, however, Dallas promptly took the lead right back after Miles Austin returned the ensuing kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown. Early in the quarter, Dallas defensive back Roy Williams intercepted a pass from Hasselbeck at the Cowboys 43-yard line

2006-07 NFL playoffs
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New England vs. New York Jets in the wild card playoff game

15.
2001 NFL season
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The 2001 NFL season was the 82nd regular season of the National Football League. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the NFLs week 2 games were postponed and re-scheduled to the weekend of January 6–7, in order to retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including Super Bowl XXXVI, were re-scheduled one week later. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, defeating the St. Louis Rams 20–17 at the Louisiana Superdome, following a pattern set in 1999, the first week of the season was permanently moved to the weekend following Labor Day. With Super Bowls XXXVI-XXXVII already scheduled for fixed dates, the league decided to eliminate the Super Bowl bye weeks for 2001 and 2002 to adjust. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the originally scheduled for September 16–17 were postponed and re-scheduled to the weekend of January 6–7. In order to retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, the season-ending Pro Bowl was also moved to one week later. This was the last season in each conference had 3 divisions. Canceling the games scheduled for September 16–17 was considered and rejected since it would have canceled a game for half the teams of the league. As a result of rescheduling Week 2 as Week 17, the Pittsburgh Steelers ended up not playing a game for the entire month of September. The ESPN Sunday Night Football game for that week was also changed and it was originally scheduled to be Cleveland at Pittsburgh, but it was replaced with Philadelphia at Tampa Bay, which was seen as a more interesting matchup. Ironically, the Eagles and the Buccaneers would both rest their starters that night, and they would meet one week later in the playoffs. This way of flexible scheduling would not be utilized at all in 2007, the games that eventually made up Week 17 marked the latest regular season games to be played during what is traditionally defined as NFL season. Another scheduling change took place in October, when the Dallas Cowboys-Oakland Raiders game was moved from October 21 to 7 to accommodate a possible Oakland Athletics home playoff game on the 21st. The rescheduling ended up being unnecessary as the Athletics would not make it past the Division Series round. Also, this was the only NFL season where every jersey had a patch to remember those who died on 9/11, the season ended with Super Bowl XXXVI when the New England Patriots defeated the St. Louis Rams. Fumble recoveries will be awarded at the spot of the recovery, taunting rules and roughing the passer will be strictly enforced. New Orleans Saints – Replaced their gold pants with black pants, Pittsburgh Steelers – New stadium, Heinz Field. San Diego Chargers – White pants with road uniforms, denver Broncos – New stadium, Invesco Field

16.
2005 NFL season
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The 2005 NFL season was the 86th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 8,2005 to January 1,2006, the playoffs began on January 7. This also marked the first time that a Sixth-seeded team, who by the nature of their seeding would play every game on the road, would advance to and win the Super Bowl. The season formally concluded with the Pro Bowl, the leagues all-star game, at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu and this marked the final season that ABC held the rights to televise Monday Night Football after thirty-six years of airing the series. When the TV contracts were renewed near the end of the season, NBC bought the right to televise Sunday Night Football, marking the first time that the network broadcast NFL games since Super Bowl XXXII in 1998. Meanwhile, CBS and Fox renewed their contracts to the American Football Conference. The game drew an NFL regular season record of 103,467 paid fans and it was a home game for the Cardinals, mostly because the team rarely sold out at their then-home field, Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. This season was the last year that the Cardinals played at Sun Devil Stadium, the Saints first home game on September 18 against the New York Giants was moved to Giants Stadium on September 19. The impromptu Monday Night doubleheader with the already scheduled was a success. As a result of the doubleheader, the NFL designated its second weekend, September 18 and 19, as Hurricane Relief Weekend. The Saints remaining home games were split between the Alamodome in San Antonio and Louisiana State Universitys Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Being forced to travel to 13 of their 16 games and practice in substandard facilities and conditions in San Antonio, the Saints finished 3–13, their worst season since 1999. The last NFL team to abandon their city during a season was the hapless 1952 Dallas Texans. The Chiefs won the game, 30–20, and became the first visiting team to travel, since the game was planned for Sunday afternoon, it is one of the few times in history that the Dolphins wore their road jerseys in a home game played at night. The horse-collar tackle, in which a defender grabs inside the back or side of a shoulder pads. Peel-back blocks below the waist and from the back are now illegal, unnecessary roughness would be called for blocks away from the play on punters or kickers, similar to the same protection quarterbacks have after interceptions. When time is stopped by officials prior to the snap for any reason while time is in, previously, the play-clock would be reset to 25 seconds. During field goal and extra point attempts, the team will be penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct if it calls consecutive timeouts in an attempt to ice the kicker

17.
2006 NFL season
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The 2006 NFL season was the 87th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 7 to December 31,2006, the NFL title was eventually won by the Indianapolis Colts, when they defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI at Dolphin Stadium at Miami Gardens, Florida on February 4. Under the flexible-scheduling system, all Sunday games in the affected weeks tentatively had the start times of 1 p. m. ET/10 a. m. PT, except played in the Pacific or Mountain time zones. On the Tuesday 12 days before the games, the league moved one game to the primetime slot and this was the first season that NBC held the rights to televise Sunday Night Football, becoming the beneficiaries by negotiating the new flexible-scheduling system. ESPN became the new home of Monday Night Football, replacing sister network American Broadcasting Company, meanwhile, CBS and Fox renewed their television contracts to the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference packages, respectively. Louis Rams – Scott Linehan, replaced interim head coach Joe Vitt who replaced Mike Martz who was not allowed to coach due to problems during the 2005 season. W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, PCT = Winning Percentage, PF= Points For, PA = Points Against Clinched playoff seeds are marked in parentheses, no tie games occurred this year. Tiebreakers Source,2007 NFL Record and Fact Book a Cincinnati finished ahead of Pittsburgh in the AFC North based on division record, B Tennessee finished ahead of Jacksonville in the AFC South based on division record. C Kansas City finished ahead of Denver in the AFC West based on division record, D Indianapolis clinched the AFC #3 seed based on their head-to-head victory over New England. E New Orleans clinched the NFC #2 seed based on their victory over Philadelphia. Giants clinched the NFC #6 seed based on strength of victory than Green Bay, while Carolina. Giants and Green Bay had better conference records, within each conference, the four division winners and the two wild card teams qualified for the playoffs. The four division winners are seeded 1 through 4 based on their overall won-lost-tied record, the NFL does not use a fixed bracket playoff system, and there are no restrictions regarding teams from the same division matching up in any round. In the first round, dubbed the wild-card playoffs or wild-card weekend, the division winner hosts the sixth seed wild card. The 1 and 2 seeds from each conference then receive a bye in the first round, in the second round, the divisional playoffs, the number 1 seed hosts the worst surviving seed from the first round, while the number 2 seed will play the other team. The two surviving teams from each divisional playoff games then meet in the respective AFC and NFC Conference Championship games. Although the Super Bowl, the fourth and final round of the playoffs, is played at a neutral site, * Indicates overtime victory 2007 Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium, Honolulu, Hawaii, AFC31, NFC28 End zone celebrations became more restricted

18.
2010 NFL season
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The 2010 NFL season was the 91st regular season of the National Football League. Tom Brady, quarterback of the New England Patriots, was named MVP for the 2010 season, in Super Bowl XLV, the Leagues championship game played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers 31–25 to win their fourth Super Bowl. Spoiling the Steelers chance for a 7th title, one week later, the Seahawks dethroned the defending champion New Orleans Saints in the Wild Card round, to become the first ever sub.500 playoff team to win a postseason game. In 2008, the New England Patriots and New York Jets each had to make trips to all four of the aforementioned West Coast teams. Specifically, those traveling to Oakland will now also play at Denver. For teams scheduled to play the NFC West, those traveling to San Francisco will also go to Arizona, for the 2010 season, the intraconference and interconference matchups are, The entire 2010 regular-season schedule was unveiled at 7,00 pm EDT on Tuesday, April 20. Additionally, schedule release shows aired on both the NFL Network and as a SportsCenter special on ESPN2. The Pro Football Hall of Fame Game was held on Sunday, August 8,2010 at 8,00 pm EDT on NBC, with the Dallas Cowboys defeating the Cincinnati Bengals, 16–7 at Fawcett Stadium in Canton, Ohio. The remainder of the preseason game matchups were announced March 31,2010, highlights, among others, include the New York Giants and New York Jets facing off in the first-ever game at New Meadowlands Stadium on ESPN. The preseason game in the Bills Toronto Series featured the host Bills defeating the Indianapolis Colts in Toronto on Thursday, exact dates and times for most games were announced in April, shortly after the regular season games were announced. On March 15,2010, the NFL announced that both the New York Giants and New York Jets will play at home during the weekend to open New Meadowlands Stadium. The Giants played on Sunday with a 1 pm EDT kickoff against the Carolina Panthers, the game started at 9,15 pm Kansas City time. While the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints had both started the year before 13–0, on October 10, the Kansas City Chiefs became the last team to lose, losing to the Colts 19–9. It would mark the first time that no NFL team reached 4–0 since 1970, when the Detroit Lions, Denver Broncos, the 2010 season featured one International Series game, played at Wembley Stadium in London. The teams for this game were confirmed on January 15,2010, with the San Francisco 49ers playing host to the Denver Broncos on October 31,2010, the 49ers won 24–16, scoring 21 points in the 4th quarter. CBS televised this game on a basis, as the Broncos were the visiting team. On the same day that the Broncos and 49ers played in London and this game was televised opposite Game Four of the World Series on Fox, a practice the league had traditionally avoided. The Saints won this game 20–10, the Thanksgiving games took place on Thursday, November 25,2010, with the Detroit Lions falling to the visiting New England Patriots, 45–24

2010 NFL season
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St. Louis at home to Carolina in week 8 of the season, on October 31, 2010
2010 NFL season
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New Meadowlands Stadium
2010 NFL season
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Arrowhead Stadium after renovations.

19.
1932 NFL Playoff Game
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The 1932 NFL Playoff Game was an extra game held to break a tie in the 1932 seasons final standings in the National Football League. It matched the host Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans, since the NFLs first season in 1920, the league title had been awarded to the team with the best regular season record based on winning percentage with ties excluded. In 1932, the Spartans and the Bears tied for first place with 6-1 records, the Packers controlled their own destiny at the end of the 1932 season, but lost their final two games to the Spartans and Bears. Further complicating matters, the Spartans and Bears had played and tied each other twice during the regular season, so, for the first time, the league arranged for what amounted to a replay game to determine the NFL champion. Because the game was counted in the standings, the loser would drop to 6–2 and finish third. The league had to make a change to allow the game. Two years earlier, the Bears and Cardinals had played a charity game at the arena. The game was moved primarily to ensure adequate attendance and gate revenue. The sidelines were butted up against the stands, the goal posts were moved from the endlines to the goal lines. The ball was moved back 20 yards every time one team crossed the 10-yard line. For the first time, all started with the ball on or between the hash marks, which were ten yards from the sidelines. Additionally, drop kicks and field goals were banned, with terrible footing on the mulch and limited room for the offenses to work, the defenses dominated the games first three quarters, and the game remained scoreless. Rules at the time mandated that a forward pass had to be thrown from at least five yards behind the line of scrimmage, the Spartans argued that Nagurski did not drop back five yards before passing to Grange, but the touchdown stood. The Bears later scored a safety after the Spartans fumbled the ball out of their end-zone, the high temperature for that Sunday in Chicago was 20 °F, warmer than anticipated earlier in the week. Brown Head Linesman, Meyer Morris Because it proved so popular, through 1932, the league had used the same rules as college football. Beginning with the 1933 season, the NFL introduced its own set of rules, in 1933, the NFL expanded to ten teams and divided into two divisions. The division winners met in a championship game to determine the NFL champion. The 1932 NFL Playoff Game is also regarded as the first major football game

1932 NFL Playoff Game
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1932 NFL Playoff Game

20.
1934 NFL Championship Game
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The 1934 National Football League Championship Game, also known as the Sneakers Game, was the second scheduled NFL championship game. Played at the Polo Grounds in New York City on December 9, with a remarkable fourth quarter, the New York Giants defeated the Chicago Bears 30–13. The defending champion Bears entered the game undefeated at 13–0, with an 18-game winning streak, the Giants won consecutive division titles, but had lost their final regular season game at Philadelphia. The Bears were favored to repeat as champions, a freezing rain the night before the game froze the Polo Grounds field. There, Brother Jasper, the athletic director emptied the lockers of the basketball team. Cohen arrived in the quarter with nine pairs of basketball sneakers from the college. The Bears led 10–3 at the half when the Giants switched to the basketball sneakers, a Chicago field goal was the only score in the third quarter, extending the lead to ten points. Early in the fourth, Giants quarterback Ed Danowski threw a pass to Ike Frankian to close the score to 13–10. On the next New York drive, running back Ken Strong scored on a 42-yard touchdown run, later an 11-yard run by Strong was turned into another touchdown for the Giants, and they scored for a final time on Danowskis 9-yard run, a fourth unanswered touchdown. New York outscored the Bears 27–0 in the quarter to win 30–13. Many of the participants have been interviewed since the game took place, most notably Bronko Nagurski of the Bears, generally, players from both sides have attributed the Giants second half dominance to their selection of footwear. As Nagurski put it, We immediately said something was wrong, because they suddenly had good footing, a mini-documentary of the game, narrated by Pat Summerall, can be seen in the 1987 video Giants Among Men. NFL Films named the game the #8 bad weather game of all time, sunday, December 9,1934 Kickoff,2 p. m. J. Meyer The NFL had only four game officials in 1934, the judge was added in 1947, the line judge in 1965. An projected attendance of 55,000 was not reached, the weather kept it under 36,000. Each player on the winning Giants team received $621, while the Bears received $414 each, ISBN 978-1-58836-697-9 Pervin, Lawrence A. Footballs New York Giants. Jefferson, NC, McFarland and Company, Inc

1934 NFL Championship Game
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The NY Giants team that won the title.

21.
1956 NFL Championship Game
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In the 1956 National Football League Championship Game was the leagues 24th championship game, played at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx in New York City on December 30. The New York Giants won the Eastern Conference title and hosted the Chicago Bears, the teams had met in the regular season five weeks earlier on November 25 at Yankee Stadium and played to a 17–17 tie, the Bears entered the championship game in late December as slight favorites. The Giants hosted because the field for the title game alternated between the conferences, home field advantage was not implemented until 1975. Both teams had been absent from the title game for a decade. The Giants most recent NFL title was before World War II, the 1956 season marked the Giants first at Yankee Stadium, moving across the Harlem River from the Polo Grounds. This was the first championship since 1949 without the Cleveland Browns and he was the head coach of the Cowboys for 29 seasons, through 1988. The game was played on an icy field, with temperatures hovering around 20 °F, to adjust to the slick conditions, the Giants opted to wear sneakers instead of traditional football cleats. The advantage the white sneakers provided in footing was cited as a factor in New Yorks romp. Twenty-two years earlier on an icy Polo Grounds field, the Giants had employed the same tactic, the Giants led 13–0 after the first quarter and built a 34–7 halftime lead on their way to a 47–7 win before 56,836. Although the home team, the Giants wore their white jerseys, New Yorks custom at the time was to alternate between blue and white jerseys at home. The blue jerseys were designated as the jerseys beginning in 1957. The 1956 NFL title was the Giants fourth, they played in five of the six games from 1958 through 1963. After the 1956 title, it was thirty years before their next. Sunday, December 30,1956 Kickoff,2,05 p. m, a total of twelve officials were on hand for this championship, the game crew, a full alternate crew, and two to operate the clock. The gross receipts for the game, including $205,000 for radio and television rights, were over $517,000, each player on the winning Giants team received $3,779, while Bears players made $2,485 each

1956 NFL Championship Game
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1956 NFL Championship Game

22.
Wrigley Field
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Wrigley Field /ˈrɪɡli/ is a baseball park located on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the citys two Major League Baseball franchises and it first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghmans Chicago Whales of the Federal League, which folded after the 1915 baseball season. The Cubs played their first home game at the park on April 20,1916, chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. of the Wrigley Company acquired complete control of the Cubs in 1921. It was named Cubs Park from 1920 to 1926, before being renamed Wrigley Field in 1927, in the North side community area of Lakeview in the Wrigleyville neighborhood, Wrigley Field is on an irregular block bounded by Clark and Addison Streets and Waveland and Sheffield Avenues. Wrigley Field is nicknamed The Friendly Confines, a phrase popularized by Mr. Cub, Hall of Fame shortstop and first baseman Ernie Banks. The oldest park in the National League, the current seating capacity is 41,268, it is the second-oldest in the majors after Fenway Park, between 1921 and 1970, it was also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League. The elevation of its field is 600 feet above sea level. Baseball executive Charles Weeghman hired his architect Zachary Taylor Davis to design the park, the original tenants, the Chicago Whales came in second in the Federal League rankings in 1914 and won the league championship in 1915. In late 1915, Weeghmans Federal League folded, the resourceful Weeghman formed a syndicate including the chewing gum manufacturer William Wrigley Jr. to buy the Chicago Cubs from Charles P. Taft for about $500,000. Weeghman immediately moved the Cubs from the dilapidated West Side Grounds to his two-year-old park, in 1918, Wrigley acquired the controlling interest in the club. In November 1926, he renamed the park Wrigley Field, in 1927, an upper deck was added, and in 1937, Bill Veeck, the son of the club president, planted ivy vines against the outfield walls. The Ricketts family has been pursuing a Wrigley Field renovation since buying the team. Their current plan, revealed during the annual Cubs Convention in January 2013, calls for a $575-million, the team could not come to terms with the rooftop owners who have a lease with the team until 2023 in exchange for paying 17% of the gross revenues. In May 2014 the Cubs announced they would pursue the original 2013 plan to modify the park, the 1060 Project – Phase One started Monday, September 29,2014. During the off-season, the bleachers in both outfields were expanded and the footprint was extended further onto both Waveland and Sheffield Avenues. A3,990 sq ft Jumbotron scoreboard was added to the left field bleachers and it is topped with a sign advertising Wintrust Financial, a Rosemont-based bank and a Cubs Legacy Partner, the W in Wintrust flashes after every Cubs win. A2,400 sq ft video scoreboard was added in the right field bleachers. After the close of the extended 2015 season, work began on Phase Two of the project, the previous clubhouse space was utilized to enlarge the dugout and add two underground batting cages, an auditorium, and more team office space

Wrigley Field
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Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field
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Wrigley Field in 2004
Wrigley Field
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3,990-square foot videoboard overlooking new left field bleacher seats
Wrigley Field
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Wrigley Field is known for its distinctive ivy-covered outfield walls.

23.
Memorial Stadium (Champaign)
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Memorial Stadium is a football stadium in Champaign, Illinois, in the United States, on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The stadium is a memorial to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign students who died in World War I, the stadium is primarily used as the home of the Universitys football team. In the early 1920s, the old stadium, Illinois Field, was deemed inadequate. There was some sentiment for retaining the site, but it was too congested to expand the stadium adequately, so a new site was selected, George Huff and Robert Zuppke were responsible for pushing most of the fundraising for this project. Memorial Stadium was completed in 1923 at a cost of US$1.7 million and its original U-shaped design borrows some form from the earlier constructed Harvard Stadium. The projects general contractor was English Brothers of Champaign, who are in business to this day, the name was chosen in honor of the dead from World War I. The original construction was financed with donations from University students, alumni, at the time, the stadium consisted of double-decked stands on the east and west sidelines. The single-decked horseshoe around the end zone was later completed. Heavy rain during the construction resulted in a bulldozer sinking into the field and it was decided the expense of removing the bulldozer would have been greater than leaving it buried under the field, and it remains there today. The bell of the USS Illinois, an Iowa-class battleship that was never completed, is on loan to the university and is in use and it is traditionally rung when the Fighting Illini score a touchdown or goal during home games. The first game played in the completed stadium was the Chicago-Illinois game on November 3,1923. The stadium is dedicated to the men of the University of Illinois that gave their lives serving in World War I, in 2002, the stadium dedication was extended to those who died in World War II. There are a total of 200 columns on the east and west sides of the stadium,183 columns display one name of a University of Illinois alum that lost their lives in the first war. The stadium was dedicated on October 18,1924, on which the University football team played a homecoming game against the University of Michigan. On way to a 39–14 Illini victory, Red Grange scored six touchdowns in one of the greatest single-game performances in football history. The football playing surface within the stadium is named Zuppke Field, in honor of Robert Zuppke, the north end of Zuppke Field hosts The Grange Rock, a tribute to Red Grange. The tribute was dedicated on October 22,1994, with Mrs. Margaret Grange, Red Granges wife, the rock came from the same Indiana quarry that produced the stadiums columns. In 2009, a 12-foot statue of Red Grange was dedicated as the capstone of the stadiums Illinois Renaissance renovations, the Ray Eliot Varsity Room is named for Ray Eliot, the University of Illinois head football coach from 1942 to 1959

24.
George Halas
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George Stanley Halas Sr. nicknamed Papa Bear and Mr. Everything, was a player, coach, and owner involved with professional American football. He was the founder and owner of the National Football Leagues Chicago Bears and he was also lesser known as an inventor, jurist, radio producer, philanthropist, philatelist, and Major League Baseball player. He was one of the co-founders of the National Football League in 1920, Halas was born in Chicago, Illinois, into a family of Czech-Bohemian immigrants. His parents were migrants from Pilsen, Austria-Hungary, George had a varied career in sports. In 1915, Halas worked temporarily for Western Electric, and was planning on being on the SS Eastland and he was running late, however, as he was attempting to gain weight to play Big Ten football and missed the capsizing. He also became a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity and he helped Illinois win the 1918 Big Ten Conference football title. Serving as an ensign in the Navy during World War I, he played for a team at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and was named the MVP of the 1919 Rose Bowl. Afterward, Halas played minor league baseball, eventually earning a promotion to the New York Yankees, however, a hip injury effectively ended his baseball career. The popular myth was that Halas was succeeded as the Yankees right fielder by Babe Ruth, later that year, Halas played for the Hammond Pros and received about $75 per game. After one year with the Pros, Halas moved to Decatur, Illinois to take a position with the A. E. Staley Company, a starch manufacturer. He served as a sales representative, an outfielder on the company-sponsored baseball team. Halas selected his alma maters colors—orange and navy blue—for the teams uniforms, in 1920, Halas represented the Staleys at the meeting which formed the American Professional Football Association in Canton, Ohio. After suffering financial losses despite a 10–1–2 record, company founder, Halas moved the team to Chicago and took on teammate Dutch Sternaman as a partner. Halas was given a $5,000 bonus for the move to Chicago provided that he keep the Staleys franchise name for the 1921 season, the newly minted Chicago Staleys maneuvered their schedule to win the NFL championship that year. They took the name Bears in 1922 as a tribute to baseballs Chicago Cubs, Halas was not only the teams coach, but also played end and handled ticket sales and the business of running the club. However, severe financial difficulties brought on by the Great Depression put the Bears in dire financial straits even though Jones led them to the NFL title in 1932, Halas returned as coach in 1933 to eliminate the additional cost of paying a head coachs salary. He coached the Bears for another ten seasons and his 1934 team was undefeated until a loss in the championship game to the New York Giants. Every other team in the league immediately began trying to imitate the format, the Bears repeated as NFL champions in 1941, and the 1940s would be remembered as the era of the Monsters of the Midway

25.
Edward Sternaman
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Edward Sternaman, better known as Dutch, was an American player, coach, and owner in professional football for the NFLs Chicago Bears. Sternaman and George Halas took over management of the Decatur Staleys in 1920 when both were working for the A. E. Staley Co. a corn products firm in Decatur, Sternaman and Halas both starred in football at the University of Illinois under the coaching of Bob Zuppke. When A. E. Staley encouraged Halas to take the north to Chicago where it might survive. Sternaman played 10 seasons with the Bears after joining the team with George Halas in 1920, along with Halas, Sternaman was co-coach of the team, quarterbacked for several seasons by Joey Sternaman, Dutchs younger brother. The three men were teammates at the University of Illinois in 1918, during the Great Depression Sternaman lost money in bad investments, and arranged for Halas to buy out his share of the team. The agreement had a deadline for Halas to make final payment or lose everything he had invested to Sternaman, according to Halas, he made the final payment with just minutes to spare. In the 1930s he coached at North Park University in Chicago

Edward Sternaman
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Edward "Dutch" Sternaman

26.
American football
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The offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, or else they turn over the football to the opposing team, if they succeed, they are given a new set of four downs. Points are primarily scored by advancing the ball into the teams end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponents goalposts for a field goal. The team with the most points at the end of a game wins, American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of association football and rugby football. The first game of American football was played on November 6,1869, during the latter half of the 1870s, colleges playing association football switched to the Rugby Union code, which allowed carrying the ball. American football as a whole is the most popular sport in the United States, Professional football and college football are the most popular forms of the game, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2012, nearly 1.1 million high school athletes and 70,000 college athletes play the sport in the United States annually, almost all of them men, in the United States, American football is referred to as football. The term football was established in the rulebook for the 1876 college football season. The terms gridiron or American football are favored in English-speaking countries where other codes of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, American football evolved from the sports of association football and rugby football. What is considered to be the first American football game was played on November 6,1869 between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams, the game was played between two teams of 25 players each and used a round ball that could not be picked up or carried. It could, however, be kicked or batted with the feet, hands, head or sides, Rutgers won the game 6 goals to 4. Collegiate play continued for years in which matches were played using the rules of the host school. Representatives of Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Rutgers met on October 19,1873 to create a set of rules for all schools to adhere to. Teams were set at 20 players each, and fields of 400 by 250 feet were specified, Harvard abstained from the conference, as they favored a rugby-style game that allowed running with the ball. An 1875 Harvard-Yale game played under rugby-style rules was observed by two impressed Princeton athletes and these players introduced the sport to Princeton, a feat the Professional Football Researchers Association compared to selling refrigerators to Eskimos. Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Columbia then agreed to play using a form of rugby union rules with a modified scoring system. These schools formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, although Yale did not join until 1879, the introduction of the snap resulted in unexpected consequences. Prior to the snap, the strategy had been to punt if a scrum resulted in bad field position, however, a group of Princeton players realized that, as the snap was uncontested, they now could hold the ball indefinitely to prevent their opponent from scoring. In 1881, both teams in a game between Yale-Princeton used this strategy to maintain their undefeated records, each team held the ball, gaining no ground, for an entire half, resulting in a 0-0 tie

27.
Chicago, Illinois
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage

28.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
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The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football. As of 2017, there are a total of 310 members of the Hall of Fame, groundbreaking for the building was held on August 11,1962. The original building contained just two rooms, and 19,000 square feet of interior space, in April 1970, ground was broken for the first of many expansions. This first expansion cost $620,000, and was completed in May 1971, the size was increased to 34,000 square feet by adding another room. The pro shop opened with this expansion and this was also an important milestone for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, as yearly attendance passed the 200,000 mark for the first time. In November 1977, work began on another project, costing US$1,200,000. It was completed in November 1978, enlarging the shop and research library. The total size of the hall was now 50,500 square feet, the building remained largely unchanged until July 1993. The Hall then announced yet another expansion, costing US$9,200,000 and this expansion was completed in October 1995. The buildings size was increased to 82,307 square feet, the most notable addition was the GameDay Stadium, which shows an NFL Films production on a 20-foot by 42-foot Cinemascope screen. Through 2017, all inductees except one, played part of their professional career in the NFL. For CFL stars, there is a parallel Canadian Football Hall of Fame, only one player, the Chicago Bears have the most Hall of Famers among the leagues franchises with 32 enshrinees. Enshrinees are selected by a 46-person committee, largely made up of media members, each city that has a current NFL team sends one representative from the local media to the committee. A city with more than one franchise sends a representative for each franchise, there are also 13 at-large delegates, and one representative from the Pro Football Writers Association. Except for the PFWA representative, who is appointed to a term, all other appointments are open-ended and terminated only by death, incapacitation, retirement. To be eligible for the process, a player or coach must have been retired for at least five years. Any other contributor such as an owner or executive can be voted in at any time. Fans may nominate any player, coach or contributor by simply writing to the Pro Football Hall of Fame via letter or email

Pro Football Hall of Fame
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The Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio
Pro Football Hall of Fame
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The Hall is made up of several sections, at heart is the display of inductees.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
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Inside the original structure in 2008.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
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Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium with the Hall of Fame in lower right

29.
Retired jersey
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Retiring the number of an athlete is an honor a team bestows upon a player, usually after the player has left the team, retires from the sport or dies. Once a number is retired, no player from the team may wear that number on their uniform, unless the player so-honored permits it, however. Such an honor may also be bestowed on players who had highly memorable careers, died prematurely under tragic circumstances, some sports that retire team numbers include baseball, cricket, ice hockey, basketball, American football and association football. Retired jerseys are referred to as hanging from the rafters as they are, literally. The first number retired by a team in a professional sport was that of hockey player Ace Bailey. Some teams have retired number 12 in honor of their fans. Similarly, the Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic retired number 6 in honor of their fans, if a jersey is retired and an active player is still wearing it, the player is usually permitted to wear the number for his entire career as a player. If in the sport, managers and coaches wear uniform numbers, however, in some cases the player may elect to change their number. For instance, in 1987 the Boston Bruins of the National Hockey League decided to retire jersey number 7 in honor of Phil Esposito, at the time #7 belonged to Ray Bourque, who was the Bruins captain and had become a star in his own right. On the night of the ceremony honoring Esposito, Bourque took to the ice wearing his normal jersey. He skated over to the Hall of Famer, took off the jersey, underneath was a jersey numbered 77, which would become as associated with Bourque as the 7 was with Esposito in Boston. Bourques new jersey number would eventually join Espositos in the rafters of TD Garden, in rare cases, a number may be retired because of the players endeavors in other fields. For example, former football star Gerald Fords number 48 was retired by the University of Michigan football squad by virtue of his future career as the 38th President of the United States. Teams also take out of circulation without formally retiring them. For example, the Pittsburgh Steelers have only retired two numbers, Ernie Stautners #70 and Joe Greenes #75. However, they have not reissued the numbers of several of their greatest players since they retired, and it is understood that no Steeler will ever wear them again. Similarly, with the exception of a pair of quarterbacks in the mid-1980s, additionally, after Peyton Manning was released by the Indianapolis Colts, owner Jim Irsay stated that no Colt will ever wear Mannings #18 again, though it was not officially retired. After his departure from the team in 2004, the Lakers removed Shaquille ONeals #34 from circulation, the Lakers had announced the intention to retire ONeals #34 officially, though, doing so on April 2,2013

30.
Decatur, Illinois
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Decatur /dəˈkeɪtər/ is the largest city and the county seat of Macon County in the U. S. state of Illinois. The city was founded in 1829 and is along the Sangamon River, in 2015, the citys estimated population was 73,254. The city is home of private Millikin University and public Richland Community College. s wheel-tractor scrapers, off-highway trucks, Decatur is located at 39°51′6″N 88°56′39″W. Decatur is three hours southwest of Chicago,40 miles due east of Springfield, the state capital, and two hours northeast of St. Louis by car. According to the 2010 census, Decatur has an area of 46.91 square miles, lakes include Lake Decatur, formed in 1923 by the damming of the Sangamon River. As of the census of 2000, there were 81,860 people,34,086 households, the population density was 1,969.7 people per square mile. There were 37,239 housing units at a density of 896.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 77. 59% White,19. 47% African American,0. 17% Native American,0. 66% Asian,0. 02% Pacific Islander,0. 43% from other races, and 1. 65% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1. 19% of the population,32. 7% of all households were made up of individuals and 13. 0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30 and the family size was 2.90. The median age was 37 years, for every 100 females there were 87.9 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 83.9 males, the median income for a household in the city was $33,111, and the median income for a family was $42,379. Males had an income of $36,920 versus $22,359 for females. The per capita income for the city was $19,009, about 12. 1% of families and 16. 5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25. 1% of those under age 18 and 9. 0% of those age 65 or over. The citys motto is Decatur, We Like it Here, the old motto was The Pride of the Prairie. The Soybean Capital of the World is the unofficial, but popular motto, Decatur was awarded the All-America City Award in 1960. The citys symbol is the Transfer House, an early-20th-century Victorian structure located originally in the center of town where the mass transit lines met. The Transfer House was moved in 1963 to save it from destruction as increasing automobile traffic flowed through the highway routed through downtown

Decatur, Illinois
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Decatur downtown
Decatur, Illinois
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The Decatur Transfer House in the background in downtown's Central Park
Decatur, Illinois
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Trolley transfer station in its original location at the intersection of Main and Main streets; from a postcard sent in 1906

31.
Arizona Cardinals
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The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football franchise based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League as a member of the leagues National Football Conference West division, the Cardinals were founded as the Morgan Athletic Club in 1898, and are the oldest continuously run professional football team in the United States. The Cardinals play their games at the University of Phoenix Stadium. The team was established in Chicago in 1898 and was a member of the NFL in 1920. Along with the Chicago Bears, the club is one of two NFL charter member franchises still in operation since the leagues founding, the club then moved to St. Louis in 1960 and played in that city through 1987. Before the 1988 season, the team moved west to Tempe, Arizona, a suburb east of Phoenix. In 2006, the club playing all home games at the newly constructed University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. The franchise has won two NFL championships, both while it was based in Chicago, the first occurred in 1925, but is the subject of controversy, with supporters of the Pottsville Maroons believing that Pottsville should have won the title. Their second title, and the first to be won in a game, came in 1947. They returned to the game to defend in 1948. In 2012 the Cardinals became the first NFL franchise to lose 700 games since its inception, the franchises all-time win-loss record at the conclusion of the 2016 season is 549–741–40. They have been to the ten times and have won seven playoff games. During that season, they won their only NFC Championship Game since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, the team has also won five division titles since their 1947–1948 NFL championship game appearances. From 1988 through 2012, the Cardinals conducted their summer training camp at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. The Cardinals moved their camp to University of Phoenix Stadium in 2013. The stadium was the site of the 2015 Pro Bowl, unlike in past years, the stadium also played host to Super Bowls XLII and XLIX. The franchises inception dates back to 1898, when a group gathered to play in the Chicago South Side. Chicago painting and building contractor Chris OBrien acquired the team, which he relocated to Normal Field on Racine Avenue, the team was known as Racine Normals until 1901, when OBrien bought used jerseys from the University of Chicago

32.
North Side, Chicago
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These areas are well-defined and static. Census data are tied to the community areas, and they serve as the basis for a variety of urban planning initiatives on both the local and regional levels, the Social Science Research Committee at University of Chicago defined seventy-five community areas during the late 1920s. At the time, these community areas corresponded roughly to neighborhoods or inter-related neighborhoods within the city, in the 1950s, with the citys annexations for OHare International Airport, a seventy-sixth community area was added. Community areas are distinct from neighborhoods in Chicago, community areas often encompass groups of neighborhoods. Although many community areas contain more than one neighborhood, they may share the same name, or parts of the name. The city center area covers a more than 4 square miles, lying roughly between Division Street on the north, Lake Michigan on the east, 26th Street on the south. This area is commercial hub. The three branches of the Chicago River meet in this area, the area known as the Loop is a section within downtown, surrounded by elevated tracks of the rapid transit network. Many of downtowns commercial, cultural, and financial institutions are located in the Loop, today, the Loop is also used to identify the larger downtown area. River North contains the Magnificent Mile, a concentration of high-end retail, the Chicago Bears play in Soldier Field on the Near South Side. The citys North Side district extends north of Central−Downtown Chicago, the West Side districts, and it is the most densely populated residential section of the city, and has a considerable middle and upper-class demographic. It contains sizable public parklands and miles of beaches along Lake Michigan to the northern limits. Residential highrises line the waterfront in the eastern North Side, the district includes Eastern European, Puerto Rican, and other ethnic enclaves. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, the West Side is made up of neighborhoods such as Austin, Lawndale, Garfield Park, West Town, and Humboldt Park among others. Some neighborhoods, particularly Garfield Park and Lawndale, have had long-term socio-economic problems, other West Side neighborhoods, especially those closer to downtown, have been undergoing gentrification. The United Center, the home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks, major parks on the West Side include Douglas, Garfield, and Humboldt Park. Garfield Park Conservatory houses one of the largest collections of plants of any U. S. city. Attractions on the West Side include the Puerto Rican Day festival, the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen, the South Side is the largest section of the city, encompassing roughly 60% of the citys land area, and much was annexed in the late 19th century

North Side, Chicago
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Contents

33.
Near South Side, Chicago
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The Near South Side is a community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is located just south of the central business district, the Loop. The remaining area is undergoing a major residential and mixed-use redevelopment. The Near South Side is one of the most dynamic of Chicagos communities, the Near South Side was initially noted for wagon trails winding through a lightly populated bend of Lake Michigan. This area was first populated by working for the Illinois & Michigan Canal. Proximity to the railroads attracted light manufacturing and shops, in 1853, the community was absorbed by the extension of the city limits to 31st Street, in the same period, the Illinois Central Railroad was built into Chicago. In 1859, a South State Street horse-drawn streetcar line, linking the area to downtown, attracted wealthy families to the area. By the time of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, it was home to some of the citys finest mansions and most elite social families, however, by the start of the 20th century, rapid transit evolved and many families moved slightly farther from the Loop business district. The railroads brought warehouses and light manufacturing, Michigan Avenue between 14th Street and 22nd Street became an auto row. The Levee vice district of brothels and gambling dens around Cermak Street, Burnham Park and several accompanying institutions were built in the 1910s and 1920s. World War I and post World War I Great Migration settlers moved in, urban renewal and public housing projects later replaced some of the slums. In the 1940s, some of the slums were on the Near South Side. The Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of the Worlds Fair held on the Near South Side lakefront from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the citys centennial, the theme of the fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicagos founding. More than 40 million people visited the fair, which symbolized for many hope for Chicago, in 1977, George Halas surrendered 51 acres of railyards for redevelopment as Dearborn Park apartments, townhouses and accompanying tree-lined walkways. In 1988, the phase of Dearborn Park construction began between State St. and Clark St. south of Roosevelt Rd. A housing boom emerged in the 1990s and continues to the present day with the construction of new condominium. Construction of the Central Station development commenced in 1990 and this was a mixed-use development on 72 acres of former rail yards and air rights east of Indiana Avenue between Roosevelt Road and 18th Street. Among the prominent buildings are One Museum Park and One Museum Park West along a redeveloped Prairie Avenue, landfill use created Burnham Park and Northerly Island in the 1920s and 1930s along Lake Michigan

Near South Side, Chicago
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Soldier Field and Burnham Park Harbor
Near South Side, Chicago
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Museum campus banner
Near South Side, Chicago
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Dearborn Park II Development
Near South Side, Chicago
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Adler Planetarium

34.
Lake Michigan
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Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U. S. and it is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U. S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, ports along its shores include Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Gary, Indiana, and Benton Harbor, Michigan. The word Michigan originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Ojibwa word mishigami meaning great water, some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Indians. Their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the few hundred years. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, in the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of Michigan, named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes. Lake Michigan is joined via the narrow, open-water Straits of Mackinac with Lake Huron, the Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. The eastern end of the Straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, French coureurs des bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan played a role in the development of Chicago. The first person to reach the bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump. Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a 1985 research expedition, in 2007, a row of stones paralleling an ancient shoreline was discovered by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College. This formation lies 40 feet below the surface of the lake, One of the stones is said to have a carving resembling a mastodon. So far the formation has not been authenticated, Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes wholly within the borders of the United States, the others are shared with Canada. It lies in the known as the American Midwest. Lake Michigan has an area of 22,404 sq. mi, making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area. It is the half of Lake Michigan–Huron, which is the largest body of fresh water in the world. It is 307 miles long by 118 miles wide with a shoreline 1,640 miles long, the lakes average depth is 46 fathoms 3 feet, while its greatest depth is 153 fathoms 5 feet. It contains a volume of 1,180 cubic miles of water, Green Bay in the northwest is its largest bay

35.
Green Bay Packers
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The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues National Football Conference North division. They are also the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, organized and it is the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the United States. Home games are played at Lambeau Field, the Packers are the last vestige of small town teams common in the NFL during the 1920s and 1930s. Founded in 1919 by Earl Curly Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun, between 1919 and 1920, the Packers competed against other semi-pro clubs from around Wisconsin and the Midwest. They joined the American Professional Football Association, the forerunner of todays NFL, the Packers have won 13 league championships, the most in NFL history, with nine NFL titles before the Super Bowl era and four Super Bowl victories. They won the first two Super Bowls in 1967 and 1968 and were the only NFL team to defeat the American Football League prior to the AFL–NFL merger. The Vince Lombardi Trophy is named after the Packers head coach of the same name and their two further Super Bowl wins came in 1997 and 2011. The Packers are long-standing adversaries of the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, and Detroit Lions, the Bears–Packers rivalry is one of the oldest in NFL history, dating back to 1921. The Green Bay Packers were founded on August 11,1919 by former high-school football rivals Earl Curly Lambeau, Lambeau solicited funds for uniforms from his employer, the Indian Packing Company. He was given $500 for uniforms and equipment, on the condition that the team be named for its sponsor, the Green Bay Packers have played in their original city longer than any other team in the NFL. On August 27,1921, the Packers were granted a franchise in the new pro football league that had been formed the previous year. Financial troubles plagued the team and the franchise was forfeited within the year, before Lambeau found new financial backers and these backers, known as the Hungry Five, formed the Green Bay Football Corporation. After a near-miss in 1927, Lambeaus squad claimed the Packers first NFL title in 1929 with an undefeated 12–0–1 campaign, among the many impressive accomplishments of these years was the Packers streak of 29 consecutive home games without defeat, an NFL record which still stands. The arrival of end Don Hutson from Alabama in 1935 gave Lambeau, credited with inventing pass patterns, Hutson would lead the league in receptions eight seasons and spur the Packers to NFL championships in 1936,1939 and 1944. An iron man, Hutson played both ways, leading the league in interceptions as a safety in 1940, Hutson claimed 18 NFL records when he retired in 1945, many of which still stand. In 1951, his number 14 was the first to be retired by the Packers, after Hutsons retirement, Lambeau could not stop the Packers slide. He purchased a large lodge near Green Bay for team members, rockwood Lodge was the home of the 1946-1949 Packers, though the 1947 and 1948 seasons produced a record of 12-10-1, and 1949 was even worse at 3-9

Green Bay Packers
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Curly Lambeau, founder, player and first coach of the Packers.
Green Bay Packers
Green Bay Packers
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Packer great Brett Favre, a three time All-Pro, three time NFL MVP, and Super Bowl XXXI champion in his 16 years in Green Bay
Green Bay Packers
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Former Packers tight end Bubba Franks, 2007

36.
Olivet Nazarene University
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Olivet Nazarene University is a Christian liberal arts university located in the village of Bourbonnais, Illinois, United States. Named for Olivet, Illinois, ONU was originally established as a school in east-central Illinois in 1907. It is affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene and is the site of the Churchs Regional Celebrate Life youth gathering for the Central USA Region. It is one of the largest members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, Olivet Nazarene University traces its roots to 1907, when the Eastern Illinois Holiness Association started Miss Mary Nesbitts grammar school in a house in Georgetown, Illinois. In 1908, the schools founders acquired 14 acres in the village of Olivet, a Wesleyan–holiness community sprang up around the school. In 1909, the arts college was chartered and named Illinois Holiness University. It was then given to the Church of the Nazarene in 1912, with E. F. Walker as president and it was renamed Olivet University in 1915, and again in 1921 to Olivet College. The economic solvency of the school became a problem in the 1920s, the schools treasurer, T. W. Willingham, purchased the school back at an auction and was elected president. In 1939, the building on campus was destroyed by fire. This prompted the school to look for a new location, under President A. L. Parrott, the school moved in 1940, onto the previous 42-acre campus of St. Viators College. With the move, the name was changed to Olivet Nazarene College. The schools name was changed again in 1986 to Olivet Nazarene University, the past twenty years have been marked by a massive change in the culture and image of Olivet. Following the appointment of John C, Bowling as University president, the university began appealing to a more diverse set of students from different Christian denominations. The school began several different construction projects to mark the growth of the school as a whole, oNUs campus is 250 acres in the village of Bourbonnais, Illinois, outside the city of Kankakee, Illinois, with 30 buildings. Four buildings are original from St. Viator College, including Burke Administration, Chapman Hall, Miller Business Center, there are also satellite campuses for adult education in Rolling Meadows, Illinois and Hong Kong. Since Olivet Nazarene University relocated to Bourbonnais, the campus has several different waves of construction. In total, there are seven buildings, two gymnasiums, and six residence halls. The university also has several apartment buildings

37.
Bourbonnais, Illinois
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Bourbonnais is a village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. The population was 15,256 at the 2000 census, but had grown to 18,631 in for the 2010 census and it is part of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Chicago–Naperville–Michigan City, IL-IN-WI Combined Statistical Area. By 1830, it had a monopoly of fur trading in the midwest. In 1832, Noël LeVasseur arrived as the local agent, established a trading post. He married Watseka, niece of a Potawatomi chieftain, and after the Potawatomi were relocated to Iowa, the Potawatomi were forced to move westward by a series of treaties culminating in the Treaty of Tippecanoe, which Congress ratified in 1833. The treaty reserved two sections for Potawanomi chief Me-she-ke-te-no, and one each for Catish and Manteno. LeVasseur received considerable land through a series of trades, and eventually divorced Watseka. After establishment of the new Catholic diocese of Chicago missionary Fr, stephen Badin briefly settled in Bourbonnais Grove in 1846, before retiring further south. In 1853, the Illinois legislature split Iroquois County, and Bourbonnais Grove became part of new Kankakee County, because the Illinois Central Railroad ran through Kankakee, founded in 1854, it became the county seat, with Bourbonnais Grove as one of several townships. In 1858 residents built the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, two years later they founded Notre Dame Academy. In 1865 clerics of St. Viator founded St. Viator College for boys, LeVasseur died, aged 80, four years later. In 1999, the town was the site of a train wreck. Since 2002, as detailed below, it has become home of the training camp of the Chicago Bears. According to the 2010 census, Bourbonnais has an area of 9.31 square miles. The original French pronunciation of Bourbonnais came to be Anglicized over time to /bɜːrˈboʊnᵻs/ bər-BOH-nəs, in 1974 a state representative from Bourbonnais introduced a resolution correcting the pronunciation of the towns name to /bɜːrbəˈneɪ/ burr-bə-nay, closer to the French. As of the census of 2000, there were 15,256 people,5,341 households, the population density was 3,302.1 people per square mile. There were 5,505 housing units at a density of 1,191.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the village was 90. 21% White,4. 59% African American,0. 10% Native American,2. 39% Asian,0. 03% Pacific Islander,0. 69% from other races, and 1. 48% from two or more races

38.
History of the Chicago Bears
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The Chicago Bears American football franchise is a charter member of the National Football League and have played in all of the leagues 97 seasons. The Bears have captured nine NFL championships – eight NFL championships, the club has played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920. Through the 2012 season, they lead the NFL in overall wins with 739 and have an overall record of 739–544–42. The organization that became the Chicago Bears, the Decatur Staleys, was originally conceived by the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois. This was the start for several early professional football franchises. The company hired George Halas and Edward Dutch Sternaman in 1920 to run the team, however, official team and league records cite Halas as the founder as he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL. On September 17,1920,13 team representatives, including those representing Halas team, met in Canton, in the interest of ticket sales and crowning a yearly champion, they decided to form the American Professional Football Association. On October 3,1920, the Staleys played their first NFL game, George Halas, then the player-coach of A. E. Staleys Decatur Staleys, was among the driving forces of this meeting, which gave birth to what is now the NFL. In their first season as part of the Association, the Staleys won 10 games, all by shutouts, but lost the first league championship to the Akron Pros, who finished the season unbeaten at 8–0–3. There was no official scheduling in the 1920 season, which accounted for the difference in the number of games played that season, the Staleys and Cardinals split the 1920 series with the home team winning in each. In the Cardinals 7–6 victory over the Staleys in their first meeting of the season, each scored a TD on a fumble recovery. George Halas 1920 Staleys went on to a 10–1–2 record overall, the 1920 Akron Pros were the first ever league champions, they finished with an 8–0–3 record, 6–0–3 in league play, ending their season in a 0–0 tie against the Decatur Staleys. Because the Staleys had lost to the Racine Cardinals earlier that year, the Staleys loss to the Cardinals began a long-standing rivalry between the franchises. Had the Staleys won, there would have been a three way tie among the Staleys, the Buffalo All-Americans and the Pros, each team having one loss, each team likely would have played more games to allow teams to settle parity at the top of the standings. The Staleys moved to Chicago from Decatur, Illinois in 1921, Halas, who was given the team and $5000 by Staley to keep the name Staleys for another year, made the move. In the 1921 season, the Chicago Staleys finished first in the league, in 1922, Halas changed the team name to the Bears to reflect baseballs Chicago Cubs, the teams host at Wrigley Field. Over the next few years, the Bears were ranked among the teams in the NFL. Instead it had a somewhat controversial scheduling formula, which led to uneven standings, the highlight of the decade was George Halass unprecedented move to sign Red Grange for $100,000 in 1925

History of the Chicago Bears
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The 1920 Decatur Staleys.
History of the Chicago Bears
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Bears logo.
History of the Chicago Bears
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George Halas as player-coach of the Chicago Bears during the 1922 season.
History of the Chicago Bears
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Team photo of the Bears, 1932 league champions.

39.
Pete Rozelle
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Alvin Ray Pete Rozelle was the commissioner of the National Football League for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 to November 1989, when he retired from office. He is credited with making the NFL into one of the most successful leagues in the world. Born in South Gate, California, Rozelle grew up in neighboring Lynwood during the Great Depression and he graduated from Compton High School in 1944, with Duke Snider, lettering in baseball and basketball. He was drafted into the U. S. Navy in 1944, Rozelle entered Compton Community College in 1946. While there he worked as the student athletic news director and also worked part-time for the Los Angeles Rams as a public relations assistant, Pete Newell, head coach for the University of San Francisco Dons basketball team, came to Compton in 1948 for a recruiting visit. Impressed by Rozelle, Newell helped arrange for him to get a scholarship to work in a similar capacity at USF. Rozelle enrolled at USF that year and worked as a student publicist for the USF Dons athletic department, in addition to promoting the schools football team he was able to draw national attention to the Dons 1949 National Invitation Tournament championship basketball team. After graduating from USF in 1950 he was hired by the school as the full-time athletic news director, in 1952, he re-joined the Rams as a PR specialist. Leaving after three years, he held a series of public jobs in southern California, including marketing the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. In 1957, he returned to Rams, a disorganized, unprofitable team, lost in the growing L. A. market, as their general manager. In spite of continued struggles on the field, including a league-worst 2–10 record in 1959, after Bert Bells death in October 1959, the 33-year-old Rozelle was the surprise choice for his replacement as NFL commissioner. According to Howard Cosell in his book I Never Played the Game, when he took office following the 1959 season, there were twelve teams in the NFL playing a twelve-game schedule to frequently half-empty stadiums, and only a few teams had television contracts. The NFL in 1960 was following a model that had evolved from the 1930s. One of Rozelles early accomplishments was helping the league adopt profit-sharing of gate, the revenue-sharing was a major factor in stabilizing the NFL and guaranteeing the success of its small-market teams. Another important contribution was Rozelles success in negotiating large television contracts to broadcast every NFL game played each season, in doing so he deftly played one television network against the other. In 1962, Rozelle was re-elected to a contract to remain as commissioner. When President Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, November 22,1963, Rozelle and White House press secretary Pierre Salinger had been classmates at the University of San Francisco, so Rozelle consulted with him. Salinger urged Rozelle to play the games, so he agreed for the schedule to proceed, Rozelle felt that way, saying, It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy

Pete Rozelle
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Pete Rozelle (left) and George Halas in the early 1980s.

40.
Chicago Cubs
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The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball as a club of the National League Central division. The team plays its games at Wrigley Field, located on the citys North Side. The Cubs are one of two league teams in Chicago, the other, the Chicago White Sox, is a member of the American League Central division. The Cubs, first known as the White Stockings, was a member of the NL in 1876. The Cubs have appeared in a total of eleven World Series, the 1906 Cubs won 116 games, finishing 116–36 and posting a modern-era record winning percentage of.763, before losing the World Series to the Chicago White Sox by four games to two. The Cubs won back-to-back World Series championships in 1907 and 1908, the 108-year drought was also the longest such occurrence in all major North American sports. Since the start of play in 1969, the Cubs have appeared in the postseason eight times through the 2016 season. The Cubs are known as the North Siders, a reference to the location of Wrigley Field within the city of Chicago, there is a divisional rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals and also a newer rivalry with the Milwaukee Brewers. There is also a rivalry with the White Sox. The Cubs began play in 1876 as the Chicago White Stockings, joining the National League as a charter member. Owner William Hulbert signed multiple star players, such as pitcher Albert Spalding and infielders Ross Barnes, Deacon White, the White Stockings played their home games at West Side Grounds and quickly established themselves as one of the new leagues top teams. Spalding won forty-seven games and Barnes led the league in hitting at.429 as Chicago won the first ever National League pennant, which at the time was the games top prize. After back-to-back pennants in 1880 and 1881, Hulbert died, and Spalding, the White Stockings, with Anson acting as player-manager, captured their third consecutive pennant in 1882, and Anson established himself as the games first true superstar. In 1885 and 86, after winning N. L. pennants, both seasons resulted in match ups with the St. Louis Brown Stockings, with the clubs tying in 1885 and with St. Louis winning in 1886. This was the genesis of what would become one of the greatest rivalries in sports. In all, the Anson-led Chicago Base Ball Club won six National League pennants between 1876 and 1886. As a result, Chicagos club nickname transitioned, and by 1890 they had known as the Chicago Colts, or sometimes Ansons Colts

Chicago Cubs
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The 1876 White Stockings won the N.L. Championship
Chicago Cubs
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Team logo
Chicago Cubs
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The 1906 Cubs won a record 116 of 154 games. They then won back-to-back World Series titles in 1907–08
Chicago Cubs
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Club logo 1927 - 1936

41.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and this game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series, the top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision, a French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It, A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England, recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David Block discovered that the first recorded game of Bass-Ball took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants

42.
Pantone
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Pantone Inc. is a corporation headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. X-Rite Inc. a supplier of color measurement instruments and software, Pantone began in New York City in the 1950s as the commercial printing company of M & J Levine Advertising. In 1956, its founders, advertising executives brothers Mervin and Jesse Levine, for instance, a particular page might contain a number of yellows of varying tints. The idea behind the PMS is to allow designers to color match specific colors when a design enters production stage and this system has been widely adopted by graphic designers and reproduction and printing houses. Pantone recommends that PMS Color Guides be purchased annually, as their inks become yellowish over time, Color variance also occurs within editions based on the paper stock used, while interedition color variance occurs when there are changes to the specific paper stock used. The Pantone Color Matching System is largely a standardized color reproduction system, by standardizing the colors, different manufacturers in different locations can all refer to the Pantone system to make sure colors match without direct contact with one another. One such use is standardizing colors in the CMYK process, the CMYK process is a method of printing color by using four inks—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. A majority of the printed material is produced using the CMYK process. Those that are possible to simulate through the CMYK process are labeled as such within the companys guides, however, most of the Pantone systems 1,114 spot colors cannot be simulated with CMYK but with 13 base pigments mixed in specified amounts. The Pantone system also allows for many special colors to be produced, such as metallics, while most of the Pantone system colors are beyond the printed CMYK gamut, it was only in 2001 that Pantone began providing translations of their existing system with screen-based colors. Screen-based colors use the RGB color model—red, green, blue—system to create various colors, the Goe system has RGB and LAB values with each color. Pantone colors are described by their allocated number, PMS colors are almost always used in branding and have even found their way into government legislation and military standards. In January 2003, the Scottish Parliament debated a petition to refer to the blue in the Scottish flag as Pantone 300, countries such as Canada and South Korea and organizations such as the FIA have also chosen to refer to specific Pantone colors to use when producing flags. US states including Texas have set legislated PMS colors of their flags and it has also been used in an art project by the Brazilian photographer Angelica Dass which applies Pantone to the human skin color spectrum. On September 5,2007, Pantone introduced the Goe System, Goe consisted of over 2,000 new colors in a new matching and numbering system. The Goe system was streamlined to use base colors and accommodate many technical challenges in reproducing colors on a press. The Pantone Goe system was discontinued in November 2013, in mid-2006 Pantone, partnering with Vermont-based Fine Paints of Europe, introduced a new line of interior and exterior paints. The color palette uses Pantones color research and trending and has more than 3,000 colors, in November 2015, Pantone partnered with Redland London to create a collection of bags inspired from Pantones authority on color

Pantone
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A logo designed by the Government of Singapore to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the nation's independence. The usage instructions for the logo described it as being in Pantone Red 032 and White.
Pantone
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This article is about the corporation and its color space. For other uses, see Pantone (disambiguation).

43.
Canton Bulldogs
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The Canton Bulldogs were a professional American football team, based in Canton, Ohio. They played in the Ohio League from 1903 to 1906 and 1911 to 1919, and its successor, the Bulldogs would go on to win the 1917,1918 and 1919 Ohio League championships. They were the NFL champions in 1922 and 1923, in 1921–1923, the Bulldogs played 25 straight games without a defeat, which as of 2016 remains an NFL record. As a result of the Bulldogs early success along with the league being founded in the city, Jim Thorpe, the Olympian and renowned all-around athlete, was Cantons most-recognized player in the pre-NFL era. In 1924, Sam Deutsch, the owner of the NFLs Cleveland Indians, bought the Canton Bulldogs and took the Bulldogs name and its players to Cleveland and named his franchise the Cleveland Bulldogs. He then offered to sell the Canton franchise back to the city of Canton to play in the 1924 season, however there were no interested in the team. The Canton Bulldogs were however re-established in 1925, and the NFL considers the 1925 to 1926 Canton Bulldogs to be the team as the 1920 to 1923 incarnation. All in all, this version of the Cleveland-Canton-Philadelphia Bulldogs played from 1961 to 1966, another Canton Bulldogs team was slated to begin play in the Stars Football League in 2012, although that team never materialized. The Bulldogs name is also in use at Canton McKinley High School, prior to the debut of professional football in the city, an amateur team from Canton was mentioned as being a superior team in Stark County, Ohio. Until about 1902, this team competed with the Akron East Ends for the Ohio Independent Championship, when the Massillon Tigers arrived on the scene and went professional, Canton, as an amateur team, was no longer competitive. The Canton Bulldogs were officially established on November 15,1904 as the Canton Athletic Club, the statement stated that the football team was to be a professional organization, complete with a professional coach. The team was given the goal of beating the rival Massillon Tigers, to do this, Canton went out and offered money to the best players on all the other Ohio League teams. Bill Laub, a player, team captain and coach of the Akron East Ends, was hired as the teams first-ever coach, the team began its 1905 season, with a 7–0 record. The Bulldogs then traveled to Latrobe, Pennsylvania to play the Latrobe Athletic Association, Latrobe was not only the current Pennsylvania champions, but had gone undefeated for the last three seasons. Latrobe were also considered the only pro team capable of competing with Canton and Massillon, Canton would go on to lose its 1905 game to Latrobe, 6–0. However, the worst part of the loss came when coach Bill Laub became injured and was unable to finish the season, Blondy Wallace, a former All-American for the Penn Quakers, was then named as Laubs successor and team captain. Two weeks later, the team would lose the Ohio League championship game to the Massillon Tigers, sometime during the 1906 season, the Canton team became known as the Bulldogs although no one is quite sure how it came to be affixed to the Canton team. It wasnt called that in 1905, nor through most of the 1906 season, as late as November 4, R. C

44.
Red Grange
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His signing with the Bears helped legitimize the National Football League. He was a member of both the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame. In college, Grange was a three-time consensus All-American, leading his team to a championship in 1923. He was the only consensus All-American running back in 1924 who was not a member of the Four Horsemen, the same year, Grange became the first recipient of the Chicago Tribune Silver Football award denoting the Big Tens most valuable player. In 2008, he was named the best college player of all time by ESPN. Red Grange was born on June 13,1903, in Forksville, Pennsylvania and his father was the foreman of three lumber camps. His mother died when he was just five years old, for a number of years, the Grange family lived with relatives until they could finally afford a home of their own in Wheaton, Illinois. When they arrived in Wheaton, Grange’s father worked hard and became the chief of police, at Wheaton High School, Grange earned 16 varsity letters in four sports during the four years he attended, notably scoring 75 touchdowns and 532 points for the football team. As a high school junior, Grange scored 36 touchdowns and led Wheaton High School to an undefeated season, in his senior year, his team won every game but one in which they lost 39–0 to Scott High School in Toledo, Ohio. Knocked out in game, Grange remained unconscious for two days, having difficulty speaking when he awoke. In addition to his success in football, Grange was an all-state track, in 1920, Grange was a state champion in the high jump, while placing third and fourth in the 100-yard dash and the 220-yard dash, respectively. In 1921, he won the title in both the long jump and the 100-yard dash, and finally in 1922, he placed third in the 100-yard dash. To help the family money, he took a part-time job as an ice toter for $37.50 per week. After graduation, Grange enrolled at the University of Illinois, where he was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity and he had initially planned to compete in only basketball and track, but changed his mind once he arrived and joined coach Bob Zuppkes Fighting Illini football team. Grange played for the team from 1923 to 1925, in his first collegiate football game, he scored three touchdowns against Nebraska. He once scored four touchdowns in twelve minutes, in seven games as a sophomore, he ran for 723 yards and scored 12 touchdowns, leading Illinois to an undefeated season and the Helms Athletic Foundation national championship. The Michigan Wolverines entered the game as favorites, having won a national title in 1923. Grange returned the kickoff for a 95-yard touchdown and scored three more touchdowns on runs of 67,56, and 44 yards in the first 12 minutes–the last three in less than seven minutes

45.
Portsmouth Spartans
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The professional American football team now known as the Detroit Lions previously played in Portsmouth, Ohio from its founding in 1929 to its relocation to Detroit in 1934. This article chronicles the history during their time as the Portsmouth Spartans. Originally drawing players from defunct independent professional and semi-pro teams, they joined the fledgling National Football League in 1930 and their home stadium was Universal Stadium. The Spartans formed in 1929, drawing players from defunct independent professional, during that same year, Portsmouth residents agreed to fund the construction of a football stadium that was comparable to those in neighboring communities along the Ohio River. That approval prompted the National Football League to offer the city a franchise in July 1930, and led to the construction of Universal Stadium, which opened September 14 with a capacity of 8,200. With less than 43,000 residents in 1930, Portsmouth became the NFLs second smallest city, ahead of only Green Bay, in that game, Spartan coach Potsy Clark refused to make even a single substitution against the defending NFL champion Packers. Portsmouth won 19–0 and used only 11 players all game, at the end of the 1932 season, the Spartans were tied for first place in the league with the Chicago Bears. That prompted what in retrospect known as the first NFL playoff game. Blizzard conditions in Chicago meant the game was moved from Wrigley Fields outdoor field to the field at Chicago Stadium. The game was won 9–0 by the Bears, on a pass from Bronko Nagurski to Red Grange. The resulting interest led to the establishment of Eastern and Western conferences, despite success on the field, low revenue and the Great Depression threatened the Spartans survival. On March 24,1934, it was announced that a group led by George Richards, Richards renamed the team the Lions, as a complement to the Detroit Tigers. 1 The result of the 1932 NFL Playoff Game to determine the NFL champion between the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans counted in the standings, history of the Detroit Lions Scioto Historicals Spartan Municipal Stadium & NFL Football in Portsmouth, Ohio

46.
Chicago Stadium
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Chicago Stadium was an indoor arena located in Chicago. It opened in 1929, and closed in 1994, the Stadium hosted the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL from 1929–1994 and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA from 1967–1994. The stadium was first proposed by Chicago sports promoter Paddy Harmon, Harmon wanted to bring an NHL team to Chicago, but he lost out to Col. Frederic McLaughlin. This team would soon be known as the Chicago Black Hawks, Harmon then went on to at least try to get some control over the team by building a stadium for the Blackhawks to play in. He spent $2.5 million and borrowed funds from friends. Opened on March 28,1929 at a cost of $9.5 million, detroits Olympia stadium, built two years earlier, was a model for the Chicago stadium and had a capacity of over 15,000 people. It was also the first arena with an air conditioning system, the Stadium sat 17,317 for hockey at the time of closure. Standees were allowed for many years, and often the official figures in the published game summaries were given in round numbers. The largest recorded crowd for an NHL game at the stadium was 20,069 for a game between the Blackhawks and Minnesota North Stars on April 10,1982. Melgard played for decades during hockey games there, earning the Stadium the moniker The Madhouse on Madison, for years, it was also known as The Loudest Arena in the NBA, due to its barn-shaped features. Thats the kind of place Chicago Stadium is right now, the dressing rooms at the Stadium were placed underneath the seats, and the cramped corridor that led to the ice, with its twenty-two steps, became the stuff of legend. Legend has it a German Shepherd wandered the bowels at night as the security team. In the 1973 Stanley Cup Final against Montreal, Chicago owner Bill Wirtz had the NHLs first goal horn installed in the building and it also became traditional for Blackhawk fans to cheer loudly throughout the singing of the national anthems, especially when sung by Chicago favorite Wayne Messmer. Denizens of the second balcony often added sparklers and flags to the occasion, arguably, the most memorable of these was the singing before the 1991 NHL All-Star Game, which took place during the Gulf War. This tradition has continued at the United Center, longtime PA announcer Harvey Wittenberg had a unique monotone style, Blackhawk goal scored by #9, Bobby Hull, unassisted, at 6,13. In 1992, both the Blackhawks and the Bulls reached the finals in their respective leagues, the Blackhawks last won the Stanley Cup at the Stadium in 1938, they did not win the Cup again at home until 2015 at the United Center. It was also the last NHL arena to retain the use of an analog dial-type large four-sided clock for timekeeping in professional hockey games, the difficulty was compounded on the main central dial from the aforementioned minute and sweep-second hands being in constant motion during gameplay. The Sports Timers only digital displays were for scoring and for penalized players numbers, each comprising a six-high

47.
New York Giants
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The New York Giants are a professional American football team located in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League as a club of the leagues National Football Conference East division. The team plays its games at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Giants hold their training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Giants were one of five teams that joined the NFL in 1925 and their championship tally is surpassed only by the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears. Throughout their history, the Giants have featured 28 Hall of Fame players, including NFL Most Valuable Player award winners Mel Hein, Frank Gifford, Y. A. Tittle, and Lawrence Taylor. The teams heated rivalry with the Philadelphia Eagles is the oldest of the NFC East rivalries, dating all the way back to 1933, the Giants played their first game as an away game against All New Britain in New Britain, Connecticut, on October 4,1925. They defeated New Britain 26–0 in front of a crowd of 10,000, the Giants were successful in their first season, finishing with an 8–4 record. In its third season, the finished with the best record in the league at 11–1–1 and was awarded the NFL title. In 1930, there were many who questioned the quality of the professional game. In December 1930, the Giants played a team of Notre Dame All Stars at the Polo Grounds to raise money for the unemployed of New York City and it was also an opportunity to establish the skill and prestige of the pro game. Knute Rockne reassembled his Four Horsemen along with the stars of his 1924 Championship squad and told them to score early, Rockne, like much of the public, thought little of pro football and expected an easy win. But from the beginning it was a one-way contest, with Friedman running for two Giant touchdowns and Hap Moran passing for another, when it was all over, Coach Rockne told his team, That was the greatest football machine I ever saw. I am glad none of you got hurt, the game raised $100,000 for the homeless, and is often credited with establishing the legitimacy of the professional game for those who were critical. It also was the last game the legendary Rockne ever coached, in a 14-year span from 1933 to 1947, the Giants qualified to play in the NFL championship game 8 times, winning twice. During this period the Giants were led by Hall of Fame coach Steve Owen, the period also featured the 1944 Giants, which are ranked as the #1 defensive team in NFL history. a truly awesome unit. They gave up only 7.5 points per game and shut out five of their 10 opponents, though they lost 14-7 to the Green Bay Packers in the 1944 NFL Championship Game. The famous Sneakers Game was played in this era where the Giants defeated the Chicago Bears on an icy field in the 1934 NFL Championship Game, the Giants played the Detroit Lions to a scoreless tie on November 7,1943